


Shit Luck

by Sasou_Amalie



Series: Shit Luck [1]
Category: Days Gone (Video Game)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Blood, Blood and Gore, Deacon Is Fine AF, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Friendship, Past Relationship(s), Post-Apocalypse, Slow Burn, Swearing, We Need More Days Gone Fics, Zombies, the slowest burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-06-03 09:38:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 30,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19461310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sasou_Amalie/pseuds/Sasou_Amalie
Summary: You never know what you'll find out in the shit, but sometimes a random encounter can save your life.





	1. I watched you die

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER
> 
> This is gonna be a multi-chapter story, because the ideas keep coming and I just love the world of Days Gone.  
> Inspired by the weird fact that you can't find Sarah anywhere after you finished the game, also that O'Brian epilogue never happened.  
> Sorry for any grammar or punctuation errors, english is not my first language.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this anyways.
> 
> Of course things got a little dirty, so if you're looking for smut it's in  
> [Chapter 13](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19461310/chapters/48148381), [Chapter 17](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19461310/chapters/48399838), [Chapter 19](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19461310/chapters/48796514)

"Deacon, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?" Rikki appeared, arms crossed, on the other side of his bike.  
"The camp is low on supplies and food," Deacon stated, matter-of-factly, and strapped his sleeping bag to the carrier. "So I’m going on a run."  
"I didn’t implement the curfew for fun," she shot back in a warning tone. "With the fucking hordes pouring in from the south ‘n all.."  
"I know, I know," he lifted his hands as some kind of peace offering. "I wasn’t planning on going far, just wanted to check the Cascades, maybe Belknap for some abandoned houses, camps, whatnot. I’ll be back in no time. Promise!"  
"You shouldn’t go alone," she pleaded with a concerned face.  
"Rikki, I know you would if you could – but you can’t," Deacon said, his tone serious. "You gotta take care of the camp."  
"Jesus Deek, just listen to me for fucks sake!" He mounted his motorcycle and threw her a glance over his shoulder.  
"I can’t just sit here, doing nothing…" he said hoarsely. "I … just can’t. Sorry." The engine started with a growl, Rikki took a step forward and grabbed him by the arm.  
"I thought you were done with your reckless drifter act," she snarled. "Because there’s always something worth living for."  
"Speak for yourself," he remarked sourly. "Sarah is gone and there’s nothing left to lose for me."  
Rikki watched Deacon drive off, only leaving behind a cloud of dust and the nagging feeling that these were the last words she’d ever say to him.

***

Deacon was making his way through the Cascades housing Copelands camp, still hung up on his heated argument with Rikki. He had to admit that she was right – she knew him too well. She also seemed to have inherited some of Iron Mikes infuriatingly calm wisdom, which pissed him off even more. How could she understand what he was feeling, with Addy still by her side? He had just found and saved Sarah and moments later she disappeared, before they had the slightest chance at a normal life at Lost Lake. His knuckles on the handlebar turned white as he clenched his teeth to keep himself from screaming his frustration out into the woods, when his attention got caught by two motorbikes next to the road, barely hidden underneath some low hanging branches. He pulled over and pushed his bike into some bushes between a group of trees, reached for the assault rifle on his back and snuck into the woods. He noticed a clearing with a bunch of cabins several feet away, abandoned cars parked in front of them, clutter strewn across the asphalt and a body in the middle of it. Deacon carefully checked his surroundings while he continued sneaking through the bushes, towards the first lodge. The door was already open and he could see a kerosene container on the floor.  
"Jackpot," he muttered to himself and went in. The kerosene and beer bottles he found inside would turn into some pretty handy molotovs. He took a quick look outside the window, but there was no one around. The blood underneath the corpse had already started drying, he must’ve been dead for a while.  
"No harm in checking his bag," Deacon thought out loud. "Not that he’d need the stuff anymore."  
  
He bent over the body, whose jugular had been slashed open and he felt the hair in the back of his neck rise. This had not been done by a freaker, this must’ve been a cut with something sharp, like a hunting knife, from behind the man’s back. His weapon, a steel pipe, was lying next to his hand. "He didn’t see you coming," Deacon mumbled under his breath, checking for any clues on where the attacker went, but there was nothing besides some drops of blood on the asphalt. He casually moved his hands over the pockets of the corpses jeans and jacket, only to find them emptied out already. "The fuck did you go?" Deacon was on the brink of straightening up, when he heard fast footsteps right behind him. He rolled to the side and grabbed the pipe, but it was too late.  
  
He barely managed to fend off the blow as he felt a sharp burn across his left cheek, right underneath the eye, where the blade had cut his skin open. Warm blood was streaming down his face and Deacon quickly pulled his weapon as he got up.  
"You assholes really fucking enjoy sneaking up on people, don’t you?" he snarled, loading his handgun while aiming it at the perpetrator, who looked at the machete that had been ripped out of his hands and lay a few feet away in the grass, out of reach.  
He wiped his face and barely noticed the blood on his finger as he took a step towards his attacker, who now stood frozen on the spot, slowly lifting his hands.  
"I should blow your goddamn head off," he raised the weapon, now locked on the persons face. "Lower your hood so I can look you in the eyes when I put a bullet in your skull."  
He carefully watched his attacker move his hands, grabbing the hood and pulling it down, revealing a pale, delicate face with big, hazel eyes. Two long, black braids were running across her scalp, he noticed a scar on her upper lip and his eyes grew wide.  
  
"Alex, what the fuck?!" he immediately lowered his gun.  
His opponent furrowed her brows, her face displaying a puzzled expression until she gasped with realization.  
"Deek?" she asked, her voice breaking. "Oh my god, Deacon!" She dropped her hands and flew towards him, throwing her arms around his neck, laughing with relief. He put his free arm around her shoulders and buried his face in the bunched hood next to her throat, feeling tears streaming down from her cheek into the scruff close to his ear. Alex trembled with every sob and he just stood there, holding her until he felt her taking a few controlled breaths. She pulled away, sniffling and wiping her face with the cuffs of her worn out sweater while he holstered his weapon.  
"I don’t get it," she said, disbelief coating her voice. "I watched you die, St. John."


	2. Get the fuck out of here!

"We gotta stop meeting like this," he grinned, thinking about the day he ran into her, almost four years ago. He touched the cut underneath his eye and hissed at the burning sensation. "Ouch."  
"Let’s get that cleaned," Alex said, shouldering her backpack. "Come on, I’ve been squatting at a place nearby, I've got fresh water, disinfectant and some rags."  
"What about my bike?" his hand vaguely gestured to a group of trees nearby.  
"Hide it in the undergrowth, we’ll get it tomorrow during the day," Alex said, pulling a crossbow off her back. "The sun will set soon, it’s too loud and dangerous around here, with the fucking horde and all the marauders close by. I’ve been scavenging on foot for the past few weeks, since there is an ambush camp just up that hill over there. Their sniper is pretty capable, I wouldn’t want to get caught in his crosshairs." She picked up her machete and handed it to Deacon. "We have to move as silently as possible."

***

He followed Alex around the house and watched her as she effortlessly moved a pallet leaning against the wall of the building.  
"It’s one of the few houses with the windows and doors still intact and I intend to keep it that way," she shrugged and climbed through the narrow cellar window. "Hand me your stuff."  
Deacon pushed his bag through the frame and carefully slid inside.  
The moon barely illuminated the shelves filled with cans on both sides of the room before Alex pulled the pallet back in its place.  
"Cozy," Deacon remarked, a grin playing on his lips.  
"You can mock me all you want, I’ve been safe here for the last six weeks or so," she flicked her lighter, basking both of their faces in the orange light of the small flame.  
Deacon looked at her, small strands of hair sticking to her forehead, her face covered with dirt and dark flecks of what appeared to be dried blood, making him wonder if she'd been the one who killed the guy.  
"Come on, I’ll show you around."  
She ignited a small kerosene lamp nearby before taking off her leather jacket, hanging it on a chair next to a table. Deacon took off the holster with guns and his crossbow and dropped it on the floor before he followed Alex through the basement.  
  
"You can sleep here," she said, showing him a cot in the back of another room. "I’ll go and get some rags, supplies and ointments."  
She went up a flight of stairs and unlocked a primitive bolted lock before slowly opening the cellar door.  
"I spend most of my time in the basement, it’s easier to avoid detection like that," she whispered while looking around. "Ah, the coast is clear." She pushed the door to the side and stepped into the kitchen.  
"In the beginning some marauders, but also rippers strayed in here, but somehow they never bothered to check the basement," Alex went into the living room and kneeled behind the couch. "But in case someone does go down there while I’m away, I try to make it look deserted and keep my important shit here."  
She pulled out a floorboard, revealing a hidden shoebox in the hollow space underneath. "Let’s get your face fixed, shall we?"  
  
Deacon placed himself on a chair at the kitchen table while Alex moistened a piece of cloth.  
"Man, I’m so sorry," she sighed and proceeded to gently dab his cheek, rubbing the dried blood and dirt off.  
"Don’t worry," he grinned. "A small cut like this won’t kill me."  
Alex swallowed hard and looked at her knees for a second.  
"Stop joking about this," she scolded him. "It’s not funny."  
"Didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable," he lifted his hands. "It’s just… I don’t know… Maybe I dulled over time? I mean, I’ve seen some shit…"  
"Yeah," Alex exhaled. "Me too."  
Deacon sighed deeply and let his shoulders hang. "Sorry, I don’t wanna burden you with my stuff."

***

"You know, the best part about hanging out here is the small creek at the end of the backyard," Alex chuckled and took a sip of her beer. "And all the mundane stuff you’ll find in small neighborhoods like this one. I mean, look at this," she rummaged through the box and held up a light-colored lump with some flower petals in it. "Someone in the house right next to this one made artisan soap, this is some real Etsy-shit right here. Hard to believe that there were actual people with hobbies living in those houses."  
Deacon grinned to mask the sharp stab of sadness he felt all of the sudden. His memories took him to a sunny day right outside at the Iron Butte pass, where he accompanied Sarah to collect some plant samples and she taught him about healing properties of lavender. He kept asking himself why he still had to remember this shit all the time. He chugged the rest of his beer to wash away the bitter taste in his mouth.  
"So tell me, what have you been up to after we… split up?" he said, his voice low, as he placed the empty bottle on the table.  
"Deacon, I… it’s hard, you know?" she said softly. "I thought I’d left you for dead in this warehouse and just… drove as far as I could. I just wanted to get away from it all. Went up north, hoping to make it to Seattle, ‘cause I thought it might be safe there. Does this make any sense?" Alex sighed and looked at him.  
"You didn’t leave me for dead, I told you to run and save yourself," Deacon said, his voice husk and tired. "There was just no way you could’ve helped me, you’d have gotten yourself killed."  
Alex played with her engraved lighter and shook her head. "I should have never left you behind."  
  
She remembered how scared she was, her heart was racing in her chest as she ran through the warehouse, followed by a bunch of swarmers. Minutes before she’d seen a shelving unit collapse under the weight of freakers climbing it, trapping Deacon in the back of the room. Alex could still feel the cold sensation rushing down her back as soon as she realized that there was no way to get through to him. She heard Deacon fire round after round of ammo into the mass crawling over shelves and boxes until he ran out.  
  
"Deek!" she screamed as she made her way through the hall.  
"Alex, get the fuck out of here!" he yelled, his voice flat and stressed.  
"I’m not gonna leave you behind," she cried out, fumbling to reload her weapon, but her trembling hands betrayed her, the sound of metal clanking onto concrete echoed through the cacophony of groans and hisses.  
A freaker turned his ugly head and looked at her from across the room before he let out a bloodcurdling scream and lunged into her direction.  
"GET! OUT!" Deacon growled, firing his handgun. "ALEX! NOW!"  
She scurried through the aisles, trying to push down the panic forming in her stomach, bubbling up to her throat. The last shot rang through the building and was followed by roaring silence when Alex threw the door open and ran towards the fence; she could feel the freaks chasing her.  
She slid through a hole and ripped her jacket and skin on the wire, but she couldn’t care less. Her and Deacons bikes were parked behind a gas station and relief flooded her when she saw her green machine awaiting her in the shadows. Alex jumped on it and kickstarted the bike in a hurry, sliding around the corner with spinning wheels before the freakers even made it through the fence.  
  
"I came back the day after," she said, her eyes full of sorrow. "But your bike was gone, the warehouse abandoned. I only found your bag, encrusted with blood, next to some dead freakers…"  
"Yeah, some marauders from a nearby camp stole the motorbike to sell it for parts," Deacons face hardened. "But that’s a story for another day."  
"How did you make it out alive?" Alex inquired. "The place was crawling and I swear I heard you fire your last bullet…" She swallowed thickly.  
"Dumb luck," Deacon shrugged "They cornered me at some point and there was no way to fight them all off with just the knife in my boot left. My back was against the wall – literally – I crouched behind a collapsed pipe as I could hear them coming for me when I saw something. Turns out it was an air vent cover, which was dented and partly blocked by a pipe. I used the knife to unscrew it, and barely made it all the way in before the pipe shifted and ended up blocking the outlet, so I moved further inside."  
"Jeez!" Alex huffed.  
"I crawled all the way to the other side of the vent, only to find the parking lot bustling with more freakers. We must’ve ran into a horde I guess," he said grimly. "I spend the whole night cowering behind a piece of scrap that separated me from the freakers, drifting in and out of sleep.

When I finally woke up, it appeared to be noon, the parking lot was abandoned, so I carefully made my way out. With my bike and most of my weapons gone I had only one choice: Making my way on foot and finding the closest camp as soon as possible."


	3. She just wanted to right her wrong

"I found Sarah – so there’s that," he sighed, casting a glance at the silver skull on his left hand.  
Alex remained silent and waited for Deacon to continue his story, but he just stared into the void, his face somewhere between longing and sadness.  
"Wasn‘t that all you ever wanted?" Alex asked carefully. "You always said that you believed she got out..."  
Deacon rubbed his beard and pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed, brows furrowed in sorrow.  
"Yeah, yeah…," he shrugged. "But somehow... I don‘t even know how to tell this story. Might not be mine to tell in the first place.” An angry expression crossed his face.  
"Do you remember that one time where I told you a bit about Sarah? That evening, where the two of us were sitting around the campfire in the woods?”  
"Ahhh, the bottle of bourbon and some street meat for the gang,” Alex grinned and fished her pack of cigarettes out of the bumbag around her waist. "You want one?”  
"Those were the days,” despite the darkness looming over him, he had to smile. "I’d take another drink, if you have something stronger.”  
"Might be in luck,” Alex got up and rummaged through the shelves. "I have no ice or anything, but there you go.” She passed him a half emptied bottle of bourbon and sat down across from him again.  
"Did I ever tell you about her job?” he asked, taking a sip straight out of the bottle, grimacing at the taste. "Holy shit, it’s bad.”   
"She did stuff with plants, like botany or something.”  
"Right, right. She worked for this government laboratory close to Iron Butte pass, Cloverdale, like top secret shit. They always lost it when I came around to pick her up, especially one of the rent-a-cops at the entrance,” he took another sip. "I mean yeah, she taught me about plants, but c’mon, do I look like I wanna get caught up in some government bullshit?”  
Alex peeled at the label on the beer bottle and took another draw.  
"One day I picked her up for some motor bike lessons in the area and when we returned to the lab, everything looked like shit had just hit the fan. Police and ambulances where driving to the lab and they needed her back there, so I just left.”  
He brought the bottle to his lips and drank slowly, not sure if the burning sensation in his throat was due to the whiskey or something else.  
"I didn’t make anything of it then, but when I think about it, this must have been the day,” he looked at Alex.   
"The day?” she asked before blowing out a thick stream of smoke.  
"Ground zero for the pandemic that killed half the nation."  
  
"About two years after everything went down, I found her in some kind of militia camp. Corporal Whitaker," he scoffed. "Yeah, she used her maiden name and pretended to not know me and let me run errands for her. She was trying to develop some kind of medicine to heal the freakers." He gestured vaguely into the room, whiskey sloshing in the bottle.  
"We went back to the Cloverdale facility, shot a bunch of people on the way to her lab to get a DNA sequencer. She told me how they locked her out of the lab, took away her clearance and used her research to cook up some kind of bioweapon – which then got stolen by some intern, who apparently accidentally infected himself and a shitload of people at a conference in Portland, while tryin’ to blow the fucking whistle."  
"No shit," Alex’ eyes grew wide.  
"She felt guilty and there was nothing I could do about it, I did my best to help her with this medicine," Deacon said in a low voice. "At some point the commanding colonel Matthew Garret blew a fuse after the camps only doctor got attacked and killed by a junkie and he proceeded to lock important people – like Sarah – into a cave he called the ark, like Noah‘s ark, so they could be the starting point of a new civilization."  
"Sounds like the guy was batshit."  
"You bet," he replied grimly. "But somehow we made it out alive."  
  
"I took her to this camp I used to stay at, north of the mountains. Iron Lake, you‘d love it there," Deacon smiled lightly. "But Sarah... I don‘t know, she couldn’t shake that feeling of guilt. She was hellbent on fixing this mess, helping the people."  
"None of his was her fault," Alex put out her cigarette and grabbed her beer again. "Maybe partly, but they kept her in the dark about it."  
"I woke up to her packing some stuff together in the middle of the night," Deacon said, staring at the bottle of whisky. "I asked her what she was doing when I already knew it, deep down inside I’ve seen it coming for a long time. She found out that I had this NERO contact, O’Brian, so she pressured me to let her talk to him. He was the guy who admitted her on that chopper in Farewell the night she got stabbed," he let out a tired sigh.  
"Fuck, Deek, I didn’t know," Alex said quietly, her voice warm with compassion.  
"So one night, she stole my radio and contacted O’Brian. She told me, when we got into a heated argument as she was packing. She fuckin’ radioed that guy and convinced him to pick her up and bring her to the closest NERO facility, because she thought she could help!" He got up and slammed the bottle on the table, breathing heavily.  
"I knew that I had to let her go as soon as caught that look in her eyes. She just wanted to right her wrong. And I could’ve never lived with myself knowing that I took that away from her," His hands rested on the table and Alex could feel the aura of pain, fear, frustration surrounding him.  
"We rode all the way to a plain behind the woods at sunset," he said, his voice breaking. "And I watched her get on another chopper with O’Brian. It‘s been almost two years since that night."


	4. Hold on tight

Alex woke up to a room dimly lit by the dying kerosene lamp. She immediately noticed the empty cot next to hers and her heart palpitated painfully as she realized that Deacon had just left in the middle of the night.  
"Shit, Deek," she hissed and got up, stumbling over his bags and weapons in the dark.  
"The hell?" She snuck up the stairs into the kitchen, then over to the living room, threading lightly in the dark. Alex made her way to the window facing the backyard and carefully pulled the curtain aside. There he was, in the dark, right next to the small stream. She watched him drop his sweater and shirt, kick off his boots before he unbuckled his belt and took off his ragged pair of jeans. His cap landed on the pile of bunched clothes before he carefully waded into the water. Alex could see him shudder at the cold as he started washing himself and she blushed as soon as she realized how she invaded his privacy in this moment. Her gaze got caught by the mongrels tattoo spreading across his back and she thought about how she’d never asked him about his past, his life before everything went to shit. She knew little about him, bits and pieces he dropped here and there, but trusted him with her life in the short time they rode together. A smile played on her lips when she remembered how they crossed paths on the broken road. She had been wandering through the scenery with her empty fuel can for an hour, looking for a place to refill when she heard the unmistakable droning of a motorbike coming her way. Alex quickly hid in some bushes near a deserted campsite and decided to see if she could ambush the person and get some gas and supplies out of it.

A man came to a halt on the parking space and got off his bike to inspect the cars scattered across the highway. He looked scrawny enough to ensure Alex that she’d be able to knock him out cold with her baseball bat. She carefully moved through the bushes to get closer to the guy, who muttered indistinctly under his breath while he pulled some scrap out of a pick-up truck and stuffed it into his bag. She noticed his worn-out leather cut with a bunch of patches sewn to it. _Mongrels MC, Farewell Original_ , she read and fear tightened her chest. _Except for the tattoos on his neck he didn’t exactly look like a gang member_ , Alex mused, inspecting his rather young-looking, clean shaven face, but it was better to be safe than sorry. She made sure that he wasn’t holding a gun and crouched down, psyching herself up before lunging at him and took a deep breath when he came closer to the bushes. He bend down and started fumbling underneath the hood of a car to open it.  
  
_It’s now or never_ , she thought, _he’s unarmed and occupied,_ when she heard the squeaking of the moving hinges. Alex tightened her grip and was on the brink of leaping out of the bushes, when the sound of a cocking gun made her blood run cold.  
"Drop your fucking weapon and get out of the bushes, asshole," he growled, aiming for her head. She felt cold sweat running down her back as she reflexively dropped her baseball bat, racking her brain for a clever plan to get out of this situation. She slowly got up and lifted her hands.  
"Please, I am unarmed and just ran out of gas a couple of miles down the road."  
"Where are your friends hiding?" The gun was still aimed at her face and she was sure he’d execute her with a clean headshot the moment she’d make a move towards him.  
"I am alone," she said and it finally hit her, her helplessness and the loneliness of the vast emptiness surrounding the both of them. His eyes darted from the lot of cars over to the bushes behind her, then back to her face.  
"I don’t shoot women and children unless I have to," he said, taking a few steps towards her. "So you better not give me a reason."  
"O-okay," Alex sighed and felt a tear streaming down her face. She was exhausted with this drag one could barely call a life.  
"Throw me your bag," he demanded, holding out his hand to catch it. Silent tears were burning salty on her lips as he emptied her bumbag on the ground, still holding her at gunpoint. She sniffled and willed her eyes to stop filling with tears.  
"Where is your camp?" his gaze burned into hers.  
"As I said, I am alone, I was just scavenging for gas because I ran out a few miles back."  
He rose his brows at her defiant tone. "Why the fuck should I believe you?"  
The guy flinched as the gas can she kicked out of the bushes slid towards him on the asphalt.  
"It’s an army green dirt bike," Alex said. "I hid it in some bushes next to a school bus. Just take it."  
She wiped away her tears on the fabric of her sweater, still keeping her hands in front of her chest.  
"Take it and fuck off."  
  
He lowered his weapon, hesitated for a moment and proceeded to holster it.  
"Come on, there’s a gas station a few miles away from here, I’ll take you there and back to your bike," he said, picking up the gas can. "Get your stuff, then we’ll get going."  
Alex gathered her scattered belongings and watched the guy strap her can to his bike.  
She put the belt of the bag around her hips and went over to his machine when he turned the key in the ignition.  
"We have to move fast, the sun will set any minute," he said, revving the engine.  
Alex swung her leg over the bike and sat down behind him, reluctant to grab his jacket.  
"Name’s Deacon," he muttered. "Hold on tight."


	5. I've had enough of the fucking cascades

"Goddammit!" Alex cursed, kicking the tire of her dirt bike.  
"What’s wrong?" Deacon asked, walking over to the shed she’d kept the green machine hidden in.  
"She won’t start," Alex complained.  
"Probably just some gunk clogging the filter or rust on the spark plugs," Deacon shrugged. "Cope’s camp is close by, let’s pay them a visit."  
"How’s that supposed to help?", she snapped.  
"His men can retrieve the bike," Deacon appeased. "We’ll ask Manny to have a look at it. He still owes me a favor."  
"Do you really trust those fuckin’ doomsday preppin’ idiots with your bike?"  
"Manny’s the best damn mechanic I know… except for maybe Rikki," Deacon said, making his way back to the house. "Pack your shit, I’m gonna take you."  
  
Alex sat behind Deacon, still sulking, when they rolled towards Peaceful Lake and slowed down.  
"There’s someone at the gate!", the guard yelled. "Open up, it’s Deacon!"  
She got off and walked inside, waiting for Deacon to push his bike into the encampment.  
"My man, Deacon St. John," Manny greeted him with a wide smile. "Haven’t seen you for a while."  
"Yeah, I’ve been busy in the Lost Lake area," Deacon grinned. "How’s life? Hope Cope didn’t sent you on any more runs?"  
"Kept my nose down, as always," Manny replied. "What brings you here?"  
Deacon signaled Alex to come over.  
"My bike crapped out, couldn’t start her up," she explained. "She’s hidden in a shed in the settlement close to the hydro power plant. Could you have a look at it?"  
"Sure, I’ll let Mark send some people to pick the bike up," Manny assured. "You’ll be good to go in no time."  
"By the way, he wanted to talk to you," Manny added, looking at the drifter. "Tried radioing you for quite some time, but the signal didn’t make it through. Probably a bounty or some shit like that." He shrugged. "Gotta get back to work, see you guys around."  
  
"Ugh, I can’t believe we’re stuck here," Alex groaned, chucking a stone into the mirror-like lake.  
"There are worse places," Deacon said, an amused tone in his voice.  
"What did Copeland want from you?"  
"Just a bounty, like Manny said," he replied, letting his gaze wander across the landscape. "One of his men took off with a bunch of drugs and made it all the way to the Lost Lakes, at least that’s what Cope thinks. Since I’ll be heading there anyway, I might as well keep my eyes open for the guy."  
Alex threw another stone into the water.  
"I’ve never been to the Lost Lakes," she remarked, looking at Deacon.  
"Like I said, you’d like it there," he retorted. "Probably the closest thing I’ve had to a home in the last few years. Great people."  
He sighed and rubbed his beard. "They took us in when Boozer was in bad shape after a run in with some Rippers. Iron Mike, the camps former leader – such a hard ass – threatened to have me killed if I ever returned after we got in a fight about my way of dealing with stuff. Told him to go fuck himself, packed up and rode out the same day. Fucking stubborn pacifist."  
"Sounds like you," Alex chuckled. "Always picking fights with people."  
"I was sure he’d shoot me the second he’d spot me inside the camp," Deacon smirked. "But the old man agreed to let us stay, as long as I worked for the camp. Saved Boozemans life. I never really thanked him for that."  
"What happened to him?"  
"He got shot during an enemy attack," the drifter said, his voice low. "I was with him when he died."  
"Deek, I’m sorry," Alex said contritely.  
"Don't be," he looked at her. "He died fighting for something he believed in, that’s a more gracious fate than most of the people meet these days.  
"I’d like to come with you to Lost Lake, if that’s okay," Alex carefully asked. "I’ve had enough of the fucking Cascades with all the rain and mud."  
"Sure," Deacon smiled. "Boozer’s gonna be thrilled to see you."


	6. A storm is coming

Deacon had tossed and turned on the small cot in Copelands camp for hours before he finally realized that he wouldn’t fall asleep before dawn anymore. He sat up and shot Alex, who lay curled up a few meters away, an envious glance before he got off the bed with a huff. He sauntered down the wooden walkways only to find Copeland sitting at the old camping table, staring at the lake.  
"Deacon," Mark acknowledged his presence as the drifter sat down next to him.  
"What’s with that lonesome man staring at the lake act?" Deacon joked, stretching his legs.  
"A storm is coming," was Cope’s cryptic answer before silence fell between them, interrupted by the occasional crackling of logs burning in the fire. The drifter took in the scenery and noticed the reflection of the moon on the water, round and bright, wind rustling in the leaves, a sound that reminded him of the night he proposed to Sarah.  
  
He took her for a midnight stroll in the back country of Iron Butte, owned by the MC, leading her to a clearing near a bunch of waterfalls. While the both of them walked along the narrow path, surrounded by only fireflies and the murmuring of the creek meandering through the nature, she told him about work-related stuff, how there were executives monitoring their work, suits reconstructing her office without consulting her.  
He could feel her anger and frustration bubbling up, but she stopped herself from rambling on in that exact second, commenting on the pot farm she’d just spotted. Deacon remembered cracking a dumb joke about putting her PhD in botany to good use by helping the MC with the care of their marihuana plants, but she caught it immediately, demanding him to bring her to the place he actually wanted to take her. Oh, how he missed those playful little fights, her sassy comments and the way she’d rarely get when he was being sarcastic.  
Another dose of this ever-present sarcasm dropped along the way prompted her to bicker about the fact that he never took anything seriously, she complained about his reluctance to move in together or even planning their shared future in any way. He appeased and led her towards the scenery he wanted to show her.  
The way she marveled at the moonlit clearing, her eyes wide, the biggest smile gracing her face, made him realize how goddamn much he loved her. He had not planned to ask her to marry him, so he lacked a ring, but he pulled the mongrels skull off his finger and went down on one knee anyway.  
Her face when she turned around and realized what he was doing was priceless, soon after negotiating her conditions, she agreed to become his wife.  
Both of them were lying in the grass, laughing about the gigantic clod of silver on her finger, when the phone in her pocket rang – her work was requesting her immediate presence at the lab, cutting their private celebration awfully short.  
  
Deacon sighed and shifted his weight when Cope finally looked at him.  
"Something is about to happen," he said, his voice low. "I know the government is surveilling and intercepting all our radio traffic."  
"You sure?" Deacon asked, rubbing his tired eyes. "There could be a million other explanations for this, like ambush camps fucking with radio towers or simply the weather."  
"No, Deek," Copeland objected, excitement in his tone. "See, that’s what they want us to believe! The wanna separate us to weaken the camps. They need us to be powerless, so they can finally gain control over the people."  
"Goddamn truther bullshit," Deacon scoffed, getting off the bench. "Not trusting anyone won’t save you, Cope."  
The drifter made his way back towards the wooden platforms, when he heard Copeland call his name.  
"What, Cope?" he barked.  
"Be careful, Deek," Copeland said, looking him in the eye. "Otherwise you won’t see it coming."  
  
Copelands words were still stuck in his head as he and Alex geared up to leave the camp towards Lost Lake the next morning. He just stood there, his mind elsewhere, while Alex shoved boxes of ammunition into the bags mounted to her bike.  
"Jesus Deek, how about giving me a hand over here!", she railed, giving him a concerned look. "What’s up with you today?"  
"With me? Uh – nothing," he hurried to reply while handing her a medikit. "Didn’t get much sleep, that’s all."  
She rose his brow at him but remained silent until both of there bikes were packed.  
"Can’t wait to get out of this shithole," she mumbled, pushing her green machine towards the gate.  
Deacon, who caught her remark, turned his head to counter something, but forgot about what he wanted to say when he spotted Cope on one of the platforms, slowly shaking his head as he watched the two drifters leave his camp.


	7. Everything looks perfect from far away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their way to Lost Lake, Deacon has to make an important decision.

"Yo Alex," Deacon yelled over the droning motors "Let’s stop here for a minute!"  
Alex came to a halt and killed the engine. "What’s up?" she asked, raising her brows.  
"I wanna show you something," he got off his bike and walked over. "Come with me."  
He led her up a small path lined with bushes, until she could make out a fence with tarp mounted on it in the distance.  
"Stay the fuck out?", she read out loud, giving Deacon a stern look. "Are you trying to get the both of us killed?"  
"Hah, no," he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I cleared that camp several months ago. Whenever I’m scavenging in the area, the camp’s bunker is my hideout for the time being. But that’s not why we’re here."  
He pointed at the radio tower on a plain above the encampment "I hope you’re not afraid of heights."

Alex climbed the last bunch of steps and pulled herself onto the platform, followed by Deacon.  
She strolled over to the railing, resting her arms on it, staring at the stars illuminating the pitch black sky.  
"I used to come here a lot the first time I was looking for Sarah, just to clear my head, you know?" he said softly, leaning to the handrail, hands buried in the pockets of his worn out pair of jeans. "When the whole world is at your feet like that, your problems suddenly feel, I don’t know, less depressing?"  
"Everything looks perfect from far away," Alex whispered, shooting him a glance, but Deacon was staring into the distance. She noticed the serious expression on his face, his grinding jaws and tensed posture. Comfortable silence spread between the both of them and Alex witnessed a shooting star passing by. She rummaged through the pockets of her leather jacket only to pull out her cigarettes. A flick of her beloved lighter and she welcomed the calming nicotine into her lungs.  
  
After spending the last days with him, Alex realized that Deacon had changed.  
When they first met, he was this die-hard drifter, seemingly without any care in the world, just trying to make it through the day. His carefully crafted aura of indifference didn’t fool her, she saw right through his act. All the pent up sadness, worry and frustration seeped through the small cracks of his dissolving facade that one night at camp when they shared a bottle of bourbon and Deacon told her about the night he lost his wife Sarah.  
Her heart broke for him when he told her how he finally made it to the refugee camp where the NERO chopper took Sarah only to find it overrun, without any trace of her.  
The realization that there was nothing left to lose was terrifying and liberating at the same time, so he chose to cope in the only way he saw fitting: By becoming the reckless drifter he was when Alex ambushed him on that abandoned road.

"Deek," she said quietly, the urgency in her voice jolting him back into reality.  
He looked at her, his face adorably puzzled. Her heart skipped a beat. "Why are we up here?"  
He gave her a long, pensive look and sighed deeply.  
"There was this decision I had to make," he said, tiredly rubbing his face. "But… I don’t know… it felt like I couldn’t face it alone. Does that make any sense?"  
Alex looked at him sideways, translucent curls of smoke escaping her lips. She put the cigarette out on the handrail before trowing it into the dark, then pushed herself up.  
"Do you wanna tell me about it, or…" she cocked her head and grinned. "Do you just wanna stand here and stare into the void for a little longer?"  
  
"After O’Brian took Sarah to the NERO facility, she used to radio me every other day, then every other week to tell me about her progress. She wanted to know how Boozer and all the people at camp were doing. She knew how I felt about her not being there, so she didn’t ask. It only would’ve made everything harder for the both of us," he said, low and husk. "Her calls became less frequent, as she was coming closer to a significant breakthrough. I remember the excitement in her voice when she told me that she’d found a way to heal a newt and that the young girl was expected to make a full recovery. She let me know that they were moving her to a facility close to Eugene because she needed more resources and better equipment to proceed and promised to find a way to let me know that she arrived safely."  
When Alex saw the look on his face she knew what he would tell her next.  
"That was the last time I heard from her, 134 days ago. I’ve tried to contact O’Brian, but he has been AWOL as well," his voice broke as he glared into the night. "And I’m not sure if I have the strength to go through all of this again. Maybe we’re not meant to be and I just didn’t wanna see it before. Might be time to give up the ghost," He shrugged helplessly.  
"I am so sorry, Deek," Alex placed her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, but he avoided her gaze by staring at his feet, clenching his fists.  
"But the Deacon I got to know pretty well is not the kind of person to let this go without getting closure. If you’re planning to ride to Eugene, I will come with you, because you’re gonna need someone who’ll have your back."  
He lifted his head and looked at her, his expression somewhere between heartbroken and hopeful.  
"I can’t ask you to do this," he pleaded, his voice merely a rasp whisper.  
"You didn’t," Alex stated, smiling lightly.


	8. I could get used to this view

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Alex finally make it to the Lost Lake encampment.

Deacon rolled towards the gate, Alex following a few meters behind him.  
"Open the gate, it’s Deek!" the guards voice echoed through the camp.  
As the fence moved aside, Boozer was standing on the other side.  
"It’s good to see you brother," he grumbled, pulling Deacon into a warm hug, making both of them laugh with relief. Alex pushed her bike into the camp and lowered her hood.  
"Well fuck me sideways, if that ain’t Alex Shaw," Boozer exclaimed, still laughing. "Can’t believe that you’re here." He went over to greet her, putting his left arm around the small of her back, holding her tight.  
"Guess you thought you’d seen the last of me," she retorted, grinning from ear to ear.  
"We brought some bounties, fresh meat and herbs," Deacon said, unloading his bike. "Alex got some scrap and materials we considered useful."  
"Yeah… you should probably go hide your ugly ass, before word get’s around that you’re here…" he slit his finger across his throat. "Shit’s gonna get nasty."  
"How can she still be pissed?" Deacon lamented, pulling a face.  
"I’d love to see you ask her that, but I’ve gotta go," Boozer chuckled. "Security meeting, since the fucking hordes are making themselves a home in the mountains. See ya around!"  
  
As Deacon made his way over to hand in their bounties, a surprised "Deacon St. John!" made him stop dead in his tracks. He turned around and looked at Blair, the gun merchant.  
"Oh, hey Blair," he let out in relief. "How’s life?"  
"Good, but quite slow, despite all the freakers outside," she answered. "Glad to see you’re still in one piece."  
She gave him a shy smile. "I have to get back, but hey, don’t be a stranger, Deek."  
Deacon watched Blair march quickly towards her booth when he felt a slight nudge on the shoulder.  
"I see, you got a girl in every camp!" Alex joked, raising her brows at him. "Deacon St. John, you sly bastard."  
"C’mon, that’s just Blair, the gun merchant," he retorted with a tortured expression. "She’s being nice, that’s all."  
"She’s got a crush on you, obviously!" Alex grabbed the bag of ears from his hands. "Let’s see if I can get us a deal on those."  
He bit back a snarky remark and rolled his eyes at her.  
  
"Man, I could get used to this view!", Alex exclaimed, squatting on the banister surrounding the patio of Iron Mike’s lodge, while Deacon stood leaning against it. "It’s so peaceful."  
"Hold that thought," Deacon mumbled, pushing himself up as he spotted someone small and very angry storming towards him. "Hey, Rikki."  
"Boozer told me that you’re back," she hissed while glaring at him. "I can’t believe you pulled that shit on me – again. You were gone for two fuckin’ weeks!"  
"But I’m here now," he said, lifting his palms as he saw Rikki clenching her right fist.  
"I was fuckin’ worried!" she growled. "You could’ve been bleeding out in a fucking ditch and I wouldn’t know."  
"I kept an eye on him," Alex stated and hopped off the railing. "I’m Alex, it’s nice to finally put a face to the name, Deek told me so much about you." She smiled disarmingly.  
"Actually, we took care of each other," Deacon chimed in.  
"Stop talking," Rikkis voice was nothing more than a low snarl. "Come with me to the infirmary, now!"  
Deacon gave Alex an apologetic look and hurried to follow Rikki.  
  
The first thing he noticed when he entered the infirmary was the silence; normally there was some comfort in the abundance of noises, bodies tossing and turning in the sheets, Addy softly talking to patients, busy feet on hardwood floors; but now everything appeared deserted. He looked around in the dim-lit room filled with empty beds and a dark foreboding tightened his chest.  
"Rikki?" His voice felt too damn loud in the silence of the room.  
"Over here," her answer came from the back.  
He passed by a few makeshift dividers and found her sitting in a corner stuffed with beds to the brim, each covered with a blanket, there were even more on the floor.  
His eyes grew wide as he realized that each bed was holding a body, turning the room into a mortuary.  
"These are only the ones we could retrieve," Rikki said, her voice tired and beaten. "We’re running out of space to bury them."  
"Fuckin’ hell," Deacon sighed, rubbing his face in disbelief.  
"We lost some of our best runners, a few guards…" she got up and walked over to him.  
"Is Addy…" he was too scared to finish the question.  
"She’s fine, working her ass off to save the people we brought in while they were still alive." Rikki whispered. "We had to move the infirmary over to the lodge, there wasn’t enough space for all the bodies, alive or dead."  
Deacon saw a tear streaming down her face.  
"What happened?", he looked around. "Marauders? Did the Militia come back?"  
"No, this is all on the freaks," Rikki wiped her face and gave him a grim look. "I told you about the hordes pouring in from the South, and there is something about them… I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they are different."  
"How?"  
"I don’t know, Deek," she let her head hang. "I would say that they are… organized. Smart even. But that can’t be, can it? They are freaks, nothing more."  
"What do you mean by smart?" he barely managed to keep his voice steady.  
"If I wouldn’t know it any better, I’d say they’re able to plan and learn. They are stronger, faster and they hunt in smaller groups. Some of them even ambushed people or snuck into encampments."  
"Jesus, Rikki," Deacons face hardened. "What’s Boozers opinion on that?"  
"He made people put up heavy fences lakeside and assigned more guards to the gates. The curfew is still in place, no one’s allowed to leave the camp after sunset."  
"You could’ve radioed me."  
"Believe me, I tried," she defended herself. "More times than I can count. But nothing went through. I couldn’t get a hold of Cope or Alkai either. Something is happening, Deek, and we’re in the dark about it!"  
"Okay, what do you want me to do about that?"  
"I know you’re not here to stay, Deacon," she shot him a glance. "You’re gonna go after Sarah again, and nothing will ever stop you, come hell or high water. I just wanted to give you a fair warning. Things are changing in the shit and although you’re probably the toughest, most resilient person I know, you’re in over your head. We all are."  
  
Deacon found Alex sitting with Boozer, playing cards, while Jack was running around, yapping at their feet.  
"What’s with that face?" Alex asked, raising a brow at his concerned expression.  
"I need to talk to you. Now," he ordered, catching Boozers short, knowing nod.  
"Jeez, watch your tone," she chuckled and dropped her cards on the table. "We’re not done here." She gave Boozer a smile and followed the drifter around the house, over to one of the piers extending into the lake.  
She waited for him to say something, but he just stood there, his shoulders tensed, hands planted on the rail, staring at the water.  
"Man, Rikki must’ve ripped you a new one," she mused. "I’ve never seen you moping around like this." She rummaged through her bag and fumbled out a cigarette.  
"You're gonna stay here," Deacon said, ignoring her previous remarks.  
Alex plucked the cigarette from her lips and let out a thin stream of smoke, "No."  
Deacon turned around, his face distorted with anger.  
"You don’t fucking get it," he snarled. "I just stood in a room full of dead bodies, each of them killed by freaks over the past week. Capable people, trained fighters, all dead."  
Alex gave him a long look.  
"Something is happening out there," Deacon continued, his voice low. "And I’m not gonna drag you into this mess."  
"Oh, how chivalrous of you," Alex scoffed. "But this isn’t your decision. Never was."  
"This isn’t a game, Alex!" Deacon replied, pacing in front of her.  
"The last time I did what you asked of me, I left you for dead!" Alex yelled. "And I had to live with the guilt for the better part of four years! You, of all people, should know what that feels like!"  
He froze, aghast at her outburst, but deep down inside he knew that she was right. She just wanted to redeem herself and he was about to take that away from her. Deacon opened his mouth to counter something, but changed his mind. He brushed past her and left the pier.  
  
"Deek, what the fuck?!" Alex fumed.  
"We’re gonna stay here for a week, maybe two," he replied over his shoulder. "We’ll stock up on ammo and supplies, get our guns and bikes fixed. Get some food, sleep, have fun, whatever.  
I need you to be ready when we roll out those fucking gates."  
Alex watched him hasten away, the forgotten cigarette slowly turning into ashes between her fingers.


	9. You know I can handle myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lost Lake is in desperate need of supplies and both Drifters find themselves out in the shit again.

Deacon aimlessly wandered the camp, Rikki’s warning still stuck in his head, trying to make sense of the stuff she’d told him. He ended up on the outlook next to the gate, staring into the wilderness as if he was looking for proof of what Rikki said. He flinched when someone appeared next to him, causing the person to chuckle.  
"Relax, it’s me," Boozer said, still laughing when Deacon pulled a grimace. "I see Rikki told you about our problem?"  
"Yeah," Deacon answered, a serious expression on his face. "The thing is, she’s not the first person warning me about some shit that’s been happening."  
Boozer rose his brows.  
"Cope said something weird – you know, I thought it was just the usual doomsday-prepper bullshit, but now I’m not so sure anymore."  
Boozer crossed his arms in front of his chest as if he wanted to brace himself for what was about to come.  
"It was about how the government was trying to separate the camps so they’d gain control over the people again. Rikki told me you couldn’t radio him or Alkai?"  
"The only thing we’ve gotten in the last month was static. Static and some distorted mumbo-jumbo no one could make any sense of," Boozer shrugged.  
"This doesn’t sound good, Boozeman," Deacon sighed, shaking his head. "Okay, I gotta get out of here for a while, clear my head." He looked at his friend.  
"Don’t mind me," Boozer grinned. "As long as you return before curfew."  
"Will you…"  
"Have an eye on Alex?", the biker asked Deacon. "Sure."  
"I’ll find you later," the drifter promised, making his way down the ladder, towards the gate.  
  
Alex pushed her dirt bike through the doors of the camps workshop which appeared to be deserted.  
"Is anybody in?" she called out, looking around.  
"I am," Rikki answered, getting up from behind her bike.  
"Hey… Rikki, do you think you could have a look at her?" Alex asked, patting the green machine’s saddle. "She crapped out on me a few days ago and I got her fixed up at Cope’s but – uh – I’m not sure about the job they’ve done." She shrugged.  
"Yeah, no problem.", Rikki assured. "Just roll her in for now, I will have a look at her as soon as possible."  
"Thank you," Alex turned around to take care of the rest of her errands when she heard Rikki clear her throat.  
"So… you and Deacon?" she inquired.  
"Just friends," was Alex’ short-spoken answer as she tried to hide her bewilderment in the light of Rikki's brazen assumption.  
The mechanic gave her a slow nod. "He’s still hung up on his wife anyway." A vague gesture and she went back down behind her bike.  
Alex rolled her eyes and decided that it was time for a rematch with William where she’d ask him a few questions about Lost Lakes chief in command.  
  
"There you are," Alex sighed when she finally found Boozer in front of the main lodge, talking to a black woman.  
"Oh, hey, Alex, this is Addy, Addy, Alex," he said, introducing the both of them.  
"Great to meet you," Addy said with a bright smile. "Don’t forget to relay my request to anyone available, William, we desperately need some medicine and bandages!"  
"Will do," Boozer ensured. "Gonna try radioing Deacon, he’s on a run right now."  
Addy gave him a short smile and went back inside.  
"Deek’s out?" Alex asked walking down the way towards Boozers house.  
"Yeah, he needed to clear his head for a bit," the biker answered absentmindedly. "He said he’d be back before nightfall."  
Boozer lightly touched her arm. "I gotta radio him to see if maybe he can pick up some bandages."  
"Let me know if you need anything, okay?" Alex offered. "I’ll be hanging out with Jack for a bit."  
  
Boozers worried expression as he walked towards her told Alex everything she needed to know.  
"You couldn’t reach him?" she asked, getting off the floor where she’d been playing with Jack.  
"Nope, tried it for half an hour, got nothing but static," he shrugged helplessly.  
"Do you want me to go after him?" She grabbed her bag.  
"Nah, Deeks gonna be fine," Boozer retorted.  
"What about the supplies then?"  
"Shit, you’re right," the bald man sighed. "Are you sure you wanna ride out into the shit all by yourself?"  
"C’mon Boozeman, you know I can handle myself," Alex lectured him.  
"Deacon probably went west, he hasn’t been to Iron Butte for quite some time. Check the camps and townships over there, I’m sure you’ll find him. He’ll know where to get medical supplies."  
"I’m gonna need a bike," Alex remarked. "Left mine at the workshop."  
Boozer rummaged through his pockets and threw her a key.  
"Take her," he sighed with a grin. "But please, Alex, return her in one piece, will ya?"  
"I promise," she said while mounting the saddle and turning the key in the ignition. She smiled at the full hum of the motor and carefully moved the bike off the porch.  
"See you in a bit!"  
The biker watched her roll out of the gate and decided the only thing he could do was hope for the best.  
  
Deacon quickly cowered underneath the window when he heard the droning of a motorbike approaching Rogue Camp.  
"Fuck, not now," he pressed through gritted teeth and risked a quick glance outside. Someone was getting off a big-ass chopper and walked towards his machine to inspect it.  
"Get away from my fucking bike," he growled and pulled his handgun when the visitor lowered his hood and two well-known braids came to light.  
He holstered his weapon and jumped out the window, walking towards the scene.  
"Alex!" he called out, causing her to flinch.  
"What are you doing here?" he asked, lightly amused by her startled expression.  
"Boozer sent me out since he couldn’t reach you," she recovered quickly. "Addy urgently needs bandages and medicine."  
"I see the old man gave you his bike?" He gestured towards the chopper. "He must’ve been really worried."  
"Left mine with Rikki to get it fixed," she retorted. "You done here?"  
"Yeah, nothing to find here anyway," Deacon said, mounting his saddle. "There’s a NERO MMU right behind Rogue Tunnel, we might find some supplies there."


	10. Guess this means we still got something to lose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Deacon find themselves in a dire situation after scavenging a NERO MMU.
> 
> This is slightly longer than the other chapters, but since I am trying to divide everything into portions that make sense, here you go.

Alex stuffed her bag with sterile bandages and pills that were already expired, but probably better than nothing, Deacon grabbed a left-over Medikit and some supplies such as bottles, kerosene and gun powder.  
"We should get out of here, the sun will set soon," he remarked, looking at Alex who studied the leaflet of yet another pill package.  
"Yeah," she gave him a stern nod and shoved the pills into her jacket.  
  
Deacon carefully opened the door of the MMU and stepped outside, the sun was hanging low and would disappear behind the treetops in a matter of minutes.  
"Oh fuckin’ hell," Deacon growled and froze. "We’re trapped. FUCK!"  
Alex registered movement right next to the small gatehouse at the entrance and her eyes grew wide.  
"Shiiiiit," she exhaled, immediately ducking behind a bunch of boxes right next to Deacon, who grimly looked at the bushes where they had hidden their bikes.  
A hoard of freakers was streaming into the NERO checkpoint, blocking their route to a quick get-away. Deacon felt the adrenaline rushing through his veins as his body prepared for the primal response of his choice – fight or flight. Choosing fight, he reached for the assault rifle on his back, but Alex stopped him with a gesture.  
"We can make it over to that maintenance door," she whispered, her finger pointing to the side of the tunnel. "Hopefully they won’t be able to detect us."  
Both of them snuck behind a bunch of sandbags and abandoned cars and tried to avoid making any noise on their way to the rusty metal door Alex had spotted.  
  
"Shit, it’s locked!" she hissed as she pulled the handle.  
"Move!" Deacon hushed her before he wedged his knife between door and frame. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as the cackling and moaning of the horde grew louder and louder. A quick glimpse over his shoulder told him that this was one of the biggest groups he had ever seen, outnumbering the one that used to reside in the old sawmill near Lost Lake with ease.  
His heartbeat pounded in his chest, making his hands all clammy and numb.  
"How many do you think there are?" Alex whispered breathlessly.  
"Your guess is as good as mine," Deacon panted. "C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!" The door unlocked with a barely audible clicking sound and swung open.  
"Fuck yes!" Alex groaned and hurried inside, followed by Deacon who shut and bolted the door behind them.  
The maintenance tunnel was blocked with debris of a collapsed wall and cluttered with NERO boxes and a few empty shelves, barely leaving any room for the both of them.  
  
Alex leaned against the wall and looked at Deacon, who wiped beads of sweat off his forehead.  
"Fucking close call," he sighed and lowered his eyes while he gasped for air.  
Alex felt strands of her hair moving with every hitched breath he took. "It’s okay, we’re safe now"  
She watched him press his eyes shut as he bent over and put a palm on the wall right next to her face.  
"Can’t… breathe…," he forced through gritted teeth.  
"You’re hyperventilating," Alex calmly said, placing her hands on his shaking shoulders. "Let your head hang and try breathing in through the nose and out through your mouth."  
She pulled him closer and Deacon rested his head against her shoulder. He smelled like fresh air, lavender soap and something metallic, maybe blood. Alex closed her eyes and put her cheek to the side of his head while she gently patted his back.  
"Just breathe, we’re okay," she whispered, while the noises of the passing horde flooded the room.  
  
Both of them had lost track of time while they huddled together in their hideout when Deacon finally lifted his head, his beard grazing Alex’s cheek. He looked her in the eyes as he pulled away, an unreadable expression flickering in his gaze.  
Alex felt her heart beating in her throat while she stared at Deacon, who casually leaned to the wall, his hands behind his back.  
"Thank you," he said, a weak smile crossing his lips. "Didn’t mean to unravel like this."  
"I was scared, too," she said hoarsely. "Guess this means we still got something to lose."  
"Damn straight we do."

***

"I dropped some medical supplies at the lodge," Deacon said, strolling onto Boozers porch.  
"Thanks brother, we appreciate it," Boozer nodded, lounging in his chair, patting Jack’s head.  
"This was all Alex," the drifter corrected his friend.  
"How the fuck is it possible that you ran into her, of all people?" Boozer asked with a light chuckle. "Tell me, where did you find our girl?"  
"Cascades, near Cope’s camp," Deacon sneered, a grin stealing on his lips. "She, uh… she almost chopped my head off with a fuckin’ machete while I was busy frisking a corpse."  
"Jesus, Deek!" Boozer laughed loudly. "Got your ass handed to you again."  
"Yeah, yeah… I mean, you know how she is," the drifter shrugged before he sat down on the lawn chair next to Boozers.  
"I always wondered what happened to her after that warehouse incident," Boozer mused. "Sure hoped that she made it, I enjoyed having her around."  
"Out in the shit you never know what the day throws your way," Deacon sighed. "But she’s really something else."  
"Tough as nails," Boozer agreed. "Remember our run-in with some anarchists? Those fucks with their painted faces? I will never forget how that one guy took his gun to her face and she just slit his throat in return."  
"Man, her busted lip wouldn’t stop bleeding…" Deacons voice trailed off as he relived the memory of Alex standing in the middle of the road, a knife in one hand, the other pressing a rag to her face, everything covered in blood, dead anarchists at her feet.  
"You almost passed out watching her sew her own lip in that public restroom next to the campsite at Clearwater Falls with needle and thread we’d found at a gas station," Boozer remarked, giving him an amused look.  
"Really not my proudest moment," Deacon remarked sourly. "But yeah, classic Alex."

***

Deacon stepped into the workshop, uncomfortably dark and deserted at night.  
"Rikki?" he said softly while wandering through the room. "Uhh, Addy said you might be here."  
"I’m outside!", she answered the second Deacon spotted the warm light of a kerosene lamp coming from the back of the building.  
He strolled through the door, only to find Rikki crouched behind Alex’s dirt bike.  
"I see, you’re working late," he commented while coming around the machine.  
"Yeah, just fixing some small fender benders plus the usual wear and tear, other than that it’s fine," Rikki huffed and got up. "Said you told her to get this thing repaired."  
Deacon remained silent.  
"Guess you’ll leave rather sooner than later," Rikki sighed, wiping some grease off her hands. "And she’s gonna go with you."  
"Yup," Deacon confirmed, looking at Rikki.  
"How well do you know her?" she asked, her voice sounding a little too carefree to someone who knew her well. "You two seem… close."  
Deacon raised his brow at her comment, an amused smile crossing his lips. They’d never really talked about that night at the infirmary, where she’d patched him up before she made advances towards him and he shut it down immediately. He’d never taken her for someone to hold a grudge, but apparently she still had to get the rejection out of her system.  
"I met Alex a few weeks after everything went to shit, Boozer and I had just arrived in Belknap," he said, staring at the stars strewn along the deep blue of the night sky. "She tried to ambush me while I was out scavenging, I took her to get some gas and decided to bring her to our camp instead of sending her out to fend for herself. She rode with us for roughly two months before she disappeared after the both of us got overrun at a warehouse close to O’Leary Mountain."  
"You seem different when she’s around…" Rikki mused. "Maybe you’re more relaxed, less grim?" She gave him a taxing look to see if her comment slipped past his defense.  
"Sure don’t feel different," he dismissed it. "I’m just happy she made it out there, a lot of good people are already gone."  
"Yeah," Rikki breathed, thinking about Iron Mike. She felt Deacons hand gently squeezing her shoulder before he turned around.  
"I’m gonna catch some Z’s," he grinned. "Good night."


	11. One could turn this into a romance movie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Alex embark on their journey to find Sarah.

It was the break of dawn, fog crept through the camp that was still mostly asleep, except for Deacon and Boozer, who stood side by side in the dark next to the workshop.  
"Where the hell is she?", Deacon asked, followed by an annoyed groan.  
"Easy brother," Boozer chuckled. "I saw her hanging with Joe yesterday, maybe she’s staying with him?"  
Deacon gave Boozer a dirty look. "Yeah, well, I told her to have fun," he shrugged and leaned on his bike.  
"I bet you did," Boozer returned with a grin, when he heard footsteps approaching. "There she is!"  
"Sorry guys," Alex yawned and lifted her hands as a peace offering. "But I wanted to take advantage of hot showers as long as they lasted before I’ll be stuck in the wilderness for weeks to come with this guy."  
"A hot shower," Deacon said, barely able to bite back a laugh as he caught Boozers look. "Sounds good. You ready to go?"  
"I think so," Alex said, raising her brow at Boozer.  
"Guess this is goodbye for now," the bald biker said, hugging her tightly. "But you’re always welcome here, Lost Lake would be happy to have you."  
"Thank you," she returned in a low voice. "I’ll see you around." She pulled away and went to check on her bags and bike one last time.  
"Brother," Deacon said, pulling Boozer into a hug.  
"I know you have to do this, Deek," Boozer said. "Promise me that you’ll keep her safe. I want y’all to return in one piece."  
"No need to get all mushy on me, Boozeman," Deacon laughed, patting his friends back before letting go. "I’ll do my best."  
"Now go and get your wife home, will ya."  
Deacon mounted his bike while Alex started her engine, lifting her hand for a final goodbye before the both of them rolled towards the gate and then out into the shit.  
  
Deacon an Alex were riding in silence towards Iron Butte, after the fog had finally subsided, the sun stood high on a blue sky.  
It was an unusually quiet day, there had only been the occasional groups of swarmers roaming the wilderness, but besides that everything seemed deserted.  
"I don’t know how you feel about it, but somehow the quiet worries me," Alex radioed Deacon.  
"Same," he replied curtly.  
"It’s a beautiful day, though," she remarked.  
"Let’s hope it stays that way," the drifter retorted. "You don’t wanna pass the mountains during a snowstorm."  
"God, what is up with the weather in Oregon?" Alex chuckled.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Like all the sudden changes? One minute the sun is shining – boom – you’re in the middle of a snowstorm. It also rains _a lot!_ "  
"As a born and bred Oregonian I guess I’m just used to it." Deacon mused.  
"Don’t get me wrong, I love how green and vital everything looks, but as someone who grew up in Arizona, I’m never gonna like rain."  
"I think that’s the first time you ever told me where you’re from.", Deacon remarked. "Originally I mean."  
"I like to keep things to myself," she explained. "But there will be plenty of time to kill on this trip, so we might as well get to know each other a little better."  
Her cheerful tone coming out of the radio made Deacon smile.  
  
"So tell me, what was it like, growing up in the desert?" he inquired, eager to keep her talking.  
"Well, I had a very protected childhood," she said. "My Dad was a cop who lived for this job. He taught me his morals and everything I needed to know about guns, so I guess I kinda have to thank him for keeping me sane and alive in this mess. There was also a very fun side to him, he made everyone laugh who came around for our notorious neighborhood barbecues. Pretty sure he’d give me some serious shit for hanging out with one of those outlaw bikers, tho."  
Deacons rough laugh sounded from the radio.  
"My Mom taught literature and arts at high school, always nagging me about my education because she cared, but other than that she was pretty laid back. I remember that one time she caught me smoking a joint on the porch in the middle of the night and ended up sharing it with me. Made me promise to never tell my Dad."  
Four years ago even thinking about her family would’ve made her cry, but now all she felt was deep gratitude for all the memories she had of them.  
  
"How about you?", she asked.  
"My mother died the night I was born, so it was just me and my old man, a simple guy with a good heart. Worked as a mechanic all his life, I practically grew up in his workshop and bars around Farewell. He died shortly after I returned from my service in Afghanistan…"  
"God Deek, I’m so sorry," Alex apologized.  
"Don’t be, you didn’t know," Deacon replied. "So yeah, the closest thing I had to a family all those years was the MC. Jack, our Prez, gave me a job and purpose when I needed it more than anything else, and Boozer… he truly is the brother I never had."  
"Thick as thieves," Alex laughed.  
"Yeah," he sighed, thinking of all the stuff they’d been through together, countless bar brawls, a few minor crimes, some crazy shootouts and Joanys tragic death. He swallowed hard.  
  
"And then Sarah came along," he said, his voice husk.  
"You never actually told me how you guys met."  
"Believe it or not, it was just around the corner. You see, I was out on my hog, handsome 30-something Deacon, when I noticed this cute blonde poking around under the hood of her car that obviously had broken down," he laughed quietly. "So naturally I stopped and struck up a conversation by asking her for directions."  
"You seriously asked her for directions instead of just, I don't know, helping her?!" Alex gasped.  
"Damn straight I did," Deacon elaborated. "I would’ve had a look, but she was so pissed about being stuck in the wilderness that she kinda snapped at me, so I took off."  
"Deacon!", Alex screamed.  
"Wait, wait, wait," he chuckled. "Of course I rolled back after a few meters and offered her a ride, which she gladly accepted after introducing herself as Sarah. So we went up the road to see if she could get cell service anywhere, when a bunch of rednecks in a pickup almost ran us off the road."  
"Fuckin’ hell!", Alex cursed.  
"We took a few minutes to collect ourselves, she called a tow truck and I suggested to take her back to her car and keep her company, but she was too scared to get back on the bike with me.  
I cracked a bunch of dumb jokes and she finally agreed to getting in the saddle again." Deacon recalled. "And as we arrived, the fuckin’ rednecks were already rummaging through her car. So I got off my machine and started fighting them, but them being three against one, they managed to overpower me pretty quickly."  
"That’s so chivalrous of you, Deek," Alex commented.  
  
"One of them started beating the living crap out of me while the other guys held my arms back and I thought to myself _‚This is it Deacon, you’re gonna get beaten to a pulp in front of the girl you’re trying to impress, fuckin’ shameful‘_ as the guy repeatedly took his fist to my face. I began to see stars, when a gunshot suddenly pierced the silence and the three cowards scurried towards their fucking truck and took off."  
"This has got to be the best thing I’ve ever heard," Alex laughed.  
"I turned around and there she was, holding my handgun, looking at me with wide eyes, stammering something ‘bout that she’d never fired a gun before. I swear, this was the exact moment I started falling for her."  
"Awwwwwh," Alex snickered. "But seriously, one could turn this into a romance movie."  
"Yeah, you can mock me all you want," Deacon retorted. "But when you know, you know. Right after I stored away my gun she helped me patch up… Fuck, did you hear that?"  
Deacon slowed down, because he had heard that sound a million times before and knew what it meant.  
"No?" Alex’s voice wavered.  
"Okay, stop right there."  
  
"Deacon, you’re making me nervous," she sighed, parked her bike next to his and got off it.  
"Here, have a look," he said and handed her his binoculars. "Do you see the freaker in a green top, all the way back in the field?"  
Alex trained her eyes on the wilderness until she spotted a bony freak with strands of white hair crouching in the grass.  
"Yeah, I see her."  
"Watch it for a bit," he suggested.  
"She’s just strolling around like all swarmers do," Alex shrugged, following the scrawny thing totter through the field. All of the sudden a herd of deer crossed the road and trotted past the freaker, who just opened her mouth and let out a bloodcurdling scream that made Alex flinch, causing her to almost drop the binoculars.  
"What the fuck was that?" she asked, the hair on the back of her neck rising, her mind wandering off to the evening in that abandoned warehouse.  
"People call them screamers – for obvious reasons," he remarked. "Pretty sure that thing would’ve rang the dinner bell on us, had we gone any further."  
  
"No shit," Alex breathed, staring at a small horde going after the fleeing deer, driving them towards a small group of trees. "Oh my God, this can’t be happening!"  
She gave Deacon his binoculars back. "Look at those trees over there," she said breathlessly.  
"What the he– they are waiting for those deer. It’s a fucking trap." He looked at Alex.  
"I’ve never seen anything like that," she whispered, a horrified expression on her face. "Sure, they maybe tried flanking you in case you ran away from them, but this, I dunno, to plan an actual trap?"  
"Rikki told me about stuff like this happening," Deacon rubbed his beard.  
"Let’s get the hell out of here," Alex said and walked over to her bike. "I don’t mind a detour, as long as we get away from all this."


	12. It's a trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief moment of inattention causes the pair of Drifters a lot of trouble.

"God, my ass hurts," Alex complained. "I think it’s time to find a place where we can camp tonight."  
"The next checkpoint must be close," Deacon said, looking around. "The fuckin' cars are everywhere."  
Alex let her gaze wander over countless vehicles, piled together on both sides of the road, some of them with long dried blood burned into the paint and corpses decomposing inside.  
She swallowed hard as she imagined those people being scared out of their minds, just trying to get to the next NERO checkpoint, running into marauders, Rippers or worse.  
"Fuck! Alex, watch out!", Deacon yelled, the urgent tone jolted Alex back to reality. "It’s a trap!"  
  
A cold sensation rushed down her spine as she spotted the clothesline and tried dodging it by pulling the handlebar to the side, but it was too late, Alex lost control over the green machine and slid right into the contraption installed between two cars on the road. She got catapulted off her bike, slammed to the ground and rolled a few meters before she collapsed with a groan.  
"Shit," Deacon hissed while frantically stopping his bike. "Alex!" Just as he unmounted the saddle, a shot pierced the unnatural silence and soaring pain exploded in his left shoulder, throwing him to the ground. His ears were ringing, he saw stars dancing before his eyes and heaved for air.  
"Alex!" he gasped, trying to get up, but the wounded arm wouldn’t support his weight.  
She was still lying on the ground, unconscious, when he noticed a group of marauders appearing between the cars.  
"Frisk her!", one of them yelled and Deacon watched two guys rummaging through her bag and bike, while a guy with a spiked baseball bat walked towards him.  
The drifter managed to pull himself up and took a few wary steps towards the scene.  
"Leave her the fuck alone!" he growled and started coughing. He noticed warm blood running down his arm, dripping off his fingers onto the asphalt.  
The two guys shouldered Alex’ belongings and hauled her into the woods. Deacon pulled his handgun, unlocked it and aimed for the man’s head when suddenly everything ended in black nothingness.  
  
Deacon woke up face down in the dirt next to the road, his weapons and bag gone. A thumping ache in the back of his head triggered the memory of a 2x4 colliding with his skull. He grunted in pain as he pushed himself off the ground. Alex’ bike was still lying in the middle of the road, a silent witness of the marauder attack.  
His arm was covered in dried blood, the shoulder still burning where the sniper had nabbed him.  
Luckily, the bullet had just grazed the skin, he carefully moved the arm and hand, then made his way towards the woods.  
"It’s my fuckin’ fault," he mumbled, scanning the dirt for footprints or any other hint that would lead him to Alex. His chest tightened when he thought about all the things those guys would probably do to her, so he hurried down the grassy slope.  
He should’ve never taken her with him, he cursed himself for his own selfish desire for some company on this mission. What a fool he was, trying to convince himself that there was nothing to be scared of anymore, 'cause he knew how to handle things out in the shit. A sudden wave of fear send a cold sensation down his back. There was no way of denying the soft spot he’d always had for Alex, since the first time he saw her, standing in a bush, tears of exhaustion streaming down her face. He shook his head to rid himself of the intrusive thoughts and worries bubbling up and focussed on tracking her down.  
He discovered grinding marks framed by two pairs of boot prints in the mud nearby and made out a small platform filled with tents in the distance between the trees.  
"Fuckin’ murderin’ sons of bitches," he pressed through gritted teeth and stormed towards the camp.  
Squatting behind a boulder he tried to figure out the size and position of the group, the platform appeared to be the local lookout, guarded by a guy clinging onto his rifle. Deacon hid in the shadows and tossed a stone into a bush, waiting for the guy to check on the rustling noise it made. He threw his right arm around his throat and used the left one to enforce his grip, multiplying the pain in his shoulder, making him wince.  
"Good night, asshole," he grunted, pushing the unconscious body into the leaves after taking his weapon.  
  
"Let’s see where you brought her," Deacon took a look around and noticed a small concrete box surrounded by a wire mesh fence. "Fucking cowards, bet you’re hiding in that damn bunker."  
He hurried towards the encampment, looking for a way in, and entered the camp through a hastily fixed hole in the barrier.  
Deacon noticed two guys standing next to a small fire, one of them patching up his hand.  
"That bitch bit me," he put the bandage on a table next to him.  
"Hope you taught her a lesson," the other one grinned, taking a drag off his cigarette.  
"Guess Chuck will be able to get some information out of her. They came with plenty of ammo and supplies, must be camp people."  
"Yeah, I heard there are multiple campsites up north, some of them with electricity. Can you believe this?" his friend scoffed and spat on the ground, right before a bullet between his eyes shut him up.  
"You like that, huh?" Deacon growled, shooting the other guy in the chest. The biker wasted no time stepping over the lifeless bodies, rushing in the direction of the small building. He could hear someone moving inside, kicking metal scraps around, talking loudly.  
"Tell me where the fucking camp is!"  
"Eat a dick!", he heard Alex’ muffled voice, followed by a loud thud.  
Deacon snarled and kicked in the door with one forceful motion, taking his opponent inside by surprise. Two bullets and he dropped to the ground, a pained sigh leaving his lips.  
  
"Alex!", he gasped and sunk to his knees right next to her, lying on a dirty sleeping bag, her upper lip covered in blood, hands and feet bound together with cable ties. "I’m so sorry!"  
"’s about time," Alex sighed, a faint smile crossing her lips. Deacon grabbed a shard of metal and started cutting on her ties. He helped her get up and noticed that her sweater was ripped to pieces, hanging off her body.  
"Are you okay?", he whispered, barely able to mask his concern.  
"Don’t worry Deek, I put up one hell of a fight," she grinned and spat blood on the ground.  
"Do you have any idea where our gear is?" He supported her, together they made their way out of the building.  
"There are a few lodges a few feet from here, they hid our shit in a barn-like building next to them."  
  
Deacon lowered Alex on a log and took a careful look around.  
"I think there’s someone in the house, two, maybe three people," he said softly. "I’m gonna need you to stay put while I go and take them out. Can you do that?"  
She gave him a short nod, which softened his concerned expression a little. "Go, I’ll be fine."  
Alex watched him sneak towards the houses, checking them for a way in. He went in through an open window, Alex heard thumping sounds, a few shots, followed by roaring silence.  
Just when the prickling panic reached her chest, the door flew open and he stormed out, weapons and bags strapped to his back.  
"C’mon, let’s get out of here," he said, hoisting her up, the two of them disappearing into the night.

  
***

"Let me have a look at that," Deacon said softly, carefully removing the ripped sweater from her shoulder. "Looks like a contusion and a serious graze. Guess we’ll have to clean and bandage it."  
He turned away as Alex removed the destroyed piece of clothing and lowered the straps of her top.  
"Fuck!" Alex hissed as the fabric touched the wound. Deacon sat down behind her and dipped a piece of cloth into some water he had boiled over the fire. He carefully brushed her braids to the other shoulder, his eyes locked on her tiger tattoo seemingly expanding over the entirety of her back. His fingertips lingered on her neck for a split second before he traced them along the striped animal.  
He closed his eyes, taking in the softness of her skin.  
754 days since he had touched someone like this, his mind took him to the plain, Sarah standing in front of him, O’Brian in his helicopter, waiting for them to say their goodbyes.  
"I can’t do this," Deacons voice was heavy with sorrow. "I won’t survive losing you again."  
Sarah lowered her head and shook it slowly.  
"Deacon, please, I have no choice," she whispered looking up at him. "Don’t make this any harder than it already is."  
The Drifter sighed and tried to avoid her gaze.  
"I gotta go…" her voice broke as she moved her arm and gently brushed his hand with her fingers.  
"Alright then," Deacon returned, staring at his feet and rubbing his beard while uncomfortably shifting his weight.  
"I love you," Sarah mumbled under her breath and turned towards the helo. He stared at her back as she was making her way to O’Brian and a cold sensation spread throughout his body. This wasn’t how things were supposed to end between the two of them, not after everything they’d been through, all the things he overcame just to find her.  
"Sarah wait!" he called out and followed her. She turned around and he clasped her face with his rough hands, their lips collided and Deacon tried putting everything he wasn’t able to express into this kiss. He pushed his fingers into her hair and felt the warmth of Sarahs palms on his chest, tasted her salty sadness on his lips. After what felt like a small eternity, Sarah pulled away and leaned her head against his chin, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.  
"I love you, too," he said breathlessly, planting a kiss on her forehead. He then let go of her and started walking towards his bike without turning back, because he just couldn’t bear to see her cry.  
  
Alex shivered as she felt the warmth of his touch between her shoulder blades.  
"It’s beautiful," he said in a husk voice, his fingertips now resting in the middle of her back.  
He carefully wiped the scraped skin on her arm.  
"Ow!" Alex turned her head and threw him a glance over her shoulder, but Deacon was concentrating on cleaning the wound.  
She inspected his face in the flickering light of the fire illuminating the small room: his full brows knitted in concentration over his serious green eyes, the lips tensed.  
He turned away to rinse the cloth and her eyes fell on the lettering on the side of his neck, dedicated to Sarah. Alex swallowed hard, lowered her head and stared at her dirty nails.  
She felt him softly dabbing her shoulder as he broke the silence.  
"What does the tiger stand for?" The rag moved to her side.  
"Um," she said hoarsely. "For me, she is a symbol of independence, free spiritedness and strength."  
He let out an approving grunt. "I mean I’m mostly covered in club-related designs, but I always appreciated tattooing as a form of art and self expression."  
She heard him drop the rag into the bowl of water.  
"Sarah had these beautiful nature-themed sleeves…" his voice trailed off.  
"Seems fitting, given that she was a botanist," Alex replied, starting to put her top back on.  
"Wait, let me disinfect the area before we bandage it!" Deacon objected, placing his hand on the strap to stop her from pulling it up, grazing Alex’ fingers.  
He gently swabbed the raw skin with some disinfectant, causing Alex to flinch and grimace in pain.  
"Fuckin’ hell St. John," she cursed sharply.  
"It’s okay, we’re almost done," he said seconds before finally wrapping her shoulder up. "There you go, as good as new!"  
"Thank you," she said softly while looking at him over her shoulder.  
A crooked smile graced his lips. "Anytime."


	13. Don't come here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Alex both get haunted by their individual pasts and have a hard time dealing with it.  
> FYI: There's also a slightly smutty scene in this.
> 
> Enjoy reading, feedback is always welcome :)

Deacon woke up, his heart pounding in his chest. Some nights, the things he brushed off in bright daylight came back to haunt him, and this nightmare must’ve been particularly bad. He sat up and groaned as he touched the bump on the back of his head, his gaze wandered through the dimly lit room. He listened for any signs of Alex already being up, but the whole lodge was quiet.  
The drifter left the sheets to check on his friend, but her bed was deserted.  
"Alex?", he called out, waiting for an answer. "Goddammit."  
He went to the porch, to see if her bike was still there and found her sitting outside, having a smoke.  
  
"Ah, I see, you’re getting some fresh air," he joked and leaned on the handrail across the bench on which Alex sat.  
"Very funny, Deek," Alex replied and rolled her eyes at him before inspecting the remains of the cigarette. "This is, in fact, my last one. So unless I miraculously find a pack while out on a run, I guess I’ll have to quit."  
"How long have you been at it?" he asked.  
"Most of my twenties," she answered and stubbed it out before flicking the butt into the grass. "I started when I first moved to LA."  
"I never asked you about, you know, your… before," he shrugged.  
"Well, there’s not much to tell," Alex said and got up. She stared into the woods and thought about the life she had left behind; her friends and family, all probably dead by now.  
"Did you have someone in your life, like…" Deacon asked hoarsely.  
"Yeah," Alex breathed and looked at him. "A fiancé. I met him when I was 26."  
Deacon just stood there, waiting for her to elaborate, but she got up and walked towards the house.  
"Alex!" he prompted her to turn around and face him. "Do you know?" Deacon held her gaze.  
"I don’t," Alex lowered her head. "He was visiting his family on the East coast when shit went down. I remember talking to him days before, when there were still news about this mysterious sickness going around, he told me that he had this feeling. Like there was something more to it, you know? I remember laughing it off, calling him paranoid. This was the last conversation we had, suddenly all the cities were on lockdown, no planes or trains going, cars couldn’t get trough the blocked tunnels…"  
"Shit," Deacon mumbled.  
"Shortly after that, all communication broke down," she looked at Deacon with a distraught expression on her face. "Guess I’ll never know what happened to him."  
The Drifter didn’t know what to say, even though he knew exactly what she was going through. Alex felt her eyes filling with tears, but she didn’t wanna cry in front of Deacon, so she turned away and went to the lodge, to let it out and clear her head.  
He watched her walk inside, slamming the door shut with a loud bang.  
"Fuckin’ great," he huffed, feeling responsible for inadvertently making her feel like crap.  
After contemplating his options for a few minutes, he finally gave in to his urge to apologize and went after her.  
  
"Alex?" he asked softly.  
"Leave me the fuck alone, Deacon," her hoarse voice came from one of the bedrooms.  
"I am so sorry," he apologized standing in the doorframe, finding her sitting in one of the unmade beds, staring at her engraved lighter. "Didn’t mean to be insensitive."  
She glared with him with tears in her eyes.  
"Every time you think you finally left something in the past, another wave comes out of nowhere and just crushes you," she said, her tone flat and tired. "I took so much from me to finally accept that, for all I know, Adam’s probably dead. That he’ll never laugh at one of my dumb jokes ever again. I miss sitting curled up on the couch, reading a book while listening to him play guitar in the other room. There will be no movie nights, taco tuesdays or weekend getaways anymore…" she sobbed, wiping her eyes.  
"We spend years loving each other, building a future together and all of it got ripped out of our hands with the blink of an eye!" she stroked the lucky dice on silver metal with her thumb. "Can you believe that this is all I got left of him?" A sarcastic laugh fell from her lips. "A fuckin’ keepsake, when all I wanted was a lifetime together." She huffed.  
Deacon sat down at the end of the bed, his face a contrite grimace.  
"Alex," he sighed and their eyes met.  
"Don’t you dare feeling sorry for me," she said in a low voice, shoving the lighter into her jeans.  
"I–," Deacon began to speak, but was interrupted by Alex.  
"Just give me some fuckin’ space, will ya?", she sighed, got up and went out the door, leaving the helpless Drifter behind again.  
  
Deacon sat outside in an attempt to give Alex time to cool off, but deep down inside he was aware that he was just trying to hide from the fallout of the talk they had earlier.  
He knew she just wanted to be comforted, but he wasn’t sure how. The Drifter huffed with frustration and cursed his own inability to handle other peoples feelings.  
"St. John, what are you doing," he muttered underneath his breath, but his mind already travelled back to the small wooden house all the way up the Thielsen pass, where he and Sarah stranded during a snowstorm on the way back to Wizard Island. After braving the thick snowflakes for hours, both of them were soaking wet and freezing when they finally found the hut.  
Deacon hurried to get a fire going, then stripped to his boxers and sat in front of it, unsure about how to deal with this situation. All those pent up feelings of the last two years and words left unsaid were echoing in his head, but he did his best to bite them back again, when all he wanted to do was to tell her how much he loved and missed her, how the thought of her being alive kept him going through his darkest days.  
Sarah came in to place her drenched clothes next to the fire and he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. She looked like Sarah, but acted so differently. She’d always been headstrong and courageous, but the two years seemed to have hardened her. When she sat down beside him, she said something about never feeling warm again, so he pulled her closer, leading to the inevitable.  
Maybe their hands could express their feelings, when words had failed them countless times.  
He held Sarahs face and kissed her gently, almost chaste, as he lowered her onto the old blanket they’d spread across the wooden floor. His heart pounded in his chest at a sensation somewhere between well-known and new, when he felt Sarahs hands move along his sides, gently urging his body closer to hers. He was lying on top of her, their legs entwined, his lips brushing against her neck, neither of them able to fight the forces pulling them together any longer. Deacon got up and looked at her, she was beautiful, with messy strands of hair framing her flushed face, bruises covering her limbs and that warm look in her eyes. He slowly pulled her panties down her thighs with rough hands as he held her gaze and watched her crumble underneath his certain touch.  
"Deacon," she pleaded softly, goosebumps traveling across her skin where her husband had grazed it. He lowered himself to his elbows, holding his body over hers, when she put her warm palm to his face.  
"I can’t believe we found each other," she whispered and dragged her fingertips along his stomach, making him sigh and buck into her touch. He pressed his lips onto hers, hungry and relentless, before finally giving in, slowly sinking into her. They moved carefully, without any haste, their bodies finding their way back into familiar rhythms with ease.  
When they were lying on the floor, next to the dying embers, her head resting on his chest, he felt like everything finally made sense again, like there was still something to fight for and swore to himself that he’d never lose her again.  
  
He sighed, descended the stairs and walked towards their motorcycles. Desperately needing someone to talk to, so he grabbed his radio and brought it to his lips.  
"Boozeman, come in." Nothing.  
"Lost Lake, this is St. John, come in," he released the button, waiting for an answer, but there was nothing but deafening silence. Discouraged, he strapped the gadget to his chest and made his way back to the abandoned lodge. Just as he was about to open the door, a short static buzz made him stop in his tracks.  
"St. John, come in," croaked the voice coming from the radio.  
"Who’s this?" Deacon snarled and let go of the button. Another static buzz, followed by a few seconds of silence, then: "This is O’Brian, St. John, is that really you?"  
"Fuck yo-, yeah, it’s me," he retorted, his chest suddenly tightening.  
"I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for months," O’Brians voice crackled. "Something happened. Your wife…"  
"What about her?" Deacon barely managed to contain the fear in his voice.  
"She’s with… wait," followed by an excruciatingly long pause. Deacon paced along the porch, trying to calm the raging storm inside his head.  
"Deacon?" Sarahs voice sounded, distorted by the device. His heart skipped a beat. She was alive. He hurried to answer. "I’m here, Sarah."  
"I tried to contact you," he heard her voice breaking. "For months I wanted to let you know that I made it to Eugene, I am so sorry…"  
"It’s okay, don’t worry about it," he cut her off, then collected himself. "I just need to know that you’re safe." No response on the other end.  
"Sarah?" he asked anxiously. "Sarah, come in." He frantically ran down the stairs, towards his bike. A cold sensation spread throughout his body and made it so much harder to breathe.  
Another static crackle broke the silence.  
"We managed to reverse engineer the virus, which enabled us to develop a cure for most of them, you know, the freakers." she swallowed thickly. "But there is this one variant… I couldn’t figure it out at first, they just gave me the samples…"  
"Sarah," he urged her.  
"It mutates four times faster than the original strain," she hurried to answer. "It’s intelligent, resilient and adds to the human organism rather than destroying it. That’s how they designed it. That was their plan all along and I didn’t see it."  
"So what are you telling me?" he pressed trough his teeth, already starting to grasp the grueling truth behind her revelation.  
"Don’t come here," she said. "It’s too late."  
"Sarah?" he yelled into the radio. "Sarah!" But his voice went down in white noise.


	14. I'm glad you didn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Days out in the shit take their toll and everyone is having a bad time.

Alex stared at Deacon’s back, still wondering about the weird mood he’d been in for the past few days. He’d never been a man of many words, but his increased broodiness worried her. He barely talked this morning before they left and they’d spent the last hours in radio silence.  
The weather didn’t help her situation, she looked up into an iron grey sky draped in heavy clouds.  
Alex sighed and shifted her weight on the saddle.  
"Heya Deek," she radioed him. "Do you wanna take a break?"  
"Nah," the drifter answered curtly and Alex rolled her eyes. "I’m good."  
"Keep your eyes open for a gas station or camp," she said, desperately trying to keep the conversation going. "I’m running low."  
"Will do," he replied before resorting to silence again.  
"Oh my fucking God!" Alex groaned and accelerated until she passed Deacon. She turned her bike sideways, blocking the path, forcing him to stop.  
  
"The fuck, Alex?!", he yelled while he got off his saddle. Alex dismounted her green machine and stormed towards him, thunder rumbling in the distance.  
"Goddammit, what is your problem, man?" she planted herself in front of the Drifter, arms crossed, but Deacon dismissed her question with a fretful grimace.  
"Right now you’re my problem," he scoffed and looked away.  
"I swear to God, I’m gonna kick your ass, St. John," Alex growled. "Don’t take your shit out on me."  
Deacon looked at her, standing her ground, hands on hips and all of the sudden she reminded him of Sarah. Every time he got into a fight with his wife, she’d assume the exact same pose when she got really mad about his sarcastic comments.  
"Something happened," Alex remarked. "And you don’t wanna talk about it."  
The Drifter considered telling her about Sarah, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, as it would make everything much more real and he wasn’t ready to deal with the ramifications of that.  
A thunderclap directly above their heads made both of them flinch, seconds later the floodgates opened. Thick raindrops fell from the moody sky, soaking them in an instant.  
Lightning flashed and doused the surrounding trees in a surreal brightness.  
"This is just fuckin’ perfect!", Deacon scoffed, lifting his hands in defeat and Alex started laughing.  
She threw her head back, outstretched her arms and let the rain come down on her, the Drifter couldn’t help but smile at her lightheartedness. He chuckled lightly and held out his palms, feeling drops of water hitting his skin.  
Alex took a deep breath and opened her eyes, only to find a soppy Deacon standing across from her, grinning at the unpredictability of nature.  
"Let’s go see if we can find shelter," Alex said, wiping water off her face. "Otherwise we’ll get soaked to the bone."  
"Too late," Deacon smirked. "I’m fuckin’ drenched."  
Alex sneered at his remark and went over to her bike. She fired up the engine and threw Deacon a glance over her shoulder before she carefully rolled down the path leading through the woods.

***

"Fuckin finally!" Alex groaned, jumping off her bike.  
Deacon stopped his motor and watched her unholster her gun as she went towards the door of the house. She snuck to the window and looked inside.  
"Someone nailed the windows shut," she remarked, walking along the house to look for an entrance.  
"Wait," he said when she got ready to climb through a small, broken bathroom window. "You have no idea what’s inside."  
"There’s no one in there," Alex grinned, teetering on the wooden frame. "Trust me Deek, I got this."  
Deacon left the saddle and took a few steps towards the house, cautiously pulling the rifle off his back. The door crashed open with a bang and he aimed at the darkness behind it.  
"It’s clear," Alex said as she stepped out, holstering her weapon. "Looks like it has been empty for a few weeks." She walked over to him.  
"Let’s get our bikes underneath a roof and check for some dry firewood," she sighed. "Ugh, everything is soaking wet."  
Deacon watched her push her machine over to a small shed next to the lodge.  
"You just gonna stand there?" she teased him with a feisty look on her face.  
He rolled his eyes at her, followed by a crooked smile crossing his lips as he grabbed the handlebar and moved his bike right next to hers.  
"This might be the only chance to escape this fucking flood and dry our clothes," Alex mused, taking her surroundings in. "Wow, when it rains in Oregon it really pours."  
Deacon huffed and shuddered as the damp cold spread over his entire body, giving him goosebumps. He grabbed a few logs and walked over to the house.  
"I’ll take care of the fire, secure the bikes and bring some food," he shouted over his shoulder.

***

"Doesn’t get better than this," Alex pondered, sitting right next to the fire, wrapped into a stiff, old blanket, eating ravioli straight out of the can.  
"Yeah, there’s nothing better than cold canned goods," Deacon replied sarcastically.  
Alex snorted in contrived indignation, shooting him an angry glance.  
"I’m glad we found a hideout to weather the storm," Deacon appeased, a wry smile in his face. "But yeah, the last few days were trying, to say the least."  
"Do you ever miss camp life?" Alex asked.  
"Nah, not really," Deacon returned after a pause. "Sure, I can get behind warm showers and meals, spending time with people I like but honestly, after a while I always felt trapped. Like I need to get out in the shit from time to time, just to feel… I don’t know… alive again?" He shrugged.  
"After Sarah disappeared I left Lost Lake for almost four months, Rikki got so worried she wanted to send a search party, but Boozer kept her from doing that."  
"Where’d you go?" Alex brushed a few wet strands of hair behind her ear.  
"I holed up at the O’Leary Mountain hideout, went scavenging, crafted some stuff, got shitfaced, passed out, woke up the next morning. After that, rinse and repeat, for a week straight."  
"Your own personal Drifter purgation," Alex joked, shooting him a glance.  
"Maybe," Deacon mumbled, lost in his thoughts. "But it made me realize something. Even with Sarah gone, there were still people who needed me, I still had a purpose in this goddamn broken and twisted world, and that was something that kept me going. The next day I went to Peaceful Lake, talked to Cope, took a few jobs off his hands. When the work led me to Belknap, I paid Tucker a visit to see if she needed my help as well. I spend the better part of four months doing runs and bounties for them, but it was enough. Radioed Boozer from time to time so he knew I was okay, but secretly I was trying to find out if he’d heard from Sarah."  
He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his face.  
"Of course he didn’t, and one day something inside me just snapped," he sighed, his face clouded with sadness. "It felt like the end. So I just sat there that night, on the railing of the watchtower, a gun in my hands, contemplating to put myself out of this misery, once and for all."  
Alex just stared at him in the wake of his confession, not sure what to say.  
"I mean yeah, I’ve seen and been through a lot of shit, but this, it was just too much," he gruffly said. "It’s so easy to hold a gun to someone’s head and pull the trigger, but somehow I couldn’t do it. I guess I didn’t want Sarah to see what a coward I’d become. The next day, I packed up and went back to Lost Lake."  
Alex wriggled out of her blanket and put her hand on his shoulder. She looked into his eyes full of sorrow.  
"I’m glad you didn’t," she breathed, barely audible and softly squeezed his shoulder before she got up and left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't believe I made it this far.  
> Bear with me, I know it's the slowest burn, but there will be smut!


	15. We're fucked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Alex are running low on supplies and embark on a risky run at a nearby village.

Deacon leaned on the back of the couch in the living room, arms crossed in front of his chest, his expression serious.  
"We’re running out of food," he remarked, looking at Alex sitting on the stairs across from him.  
"I know," she said softly, shoving her knife into her boot.  
"The weather won’t change any time soon," the Drifter stared outside the window in the door. "And you don’t have enough gas to get to the next city."  
"There’s a gas station about two miles up the road, and I think I saw a village or camp close to it," Alex mused, looking at him.   
"We could check it out." She shrugged.  
"Don’t you think it’ll be crawling with marauders?" Deacon asked.  
"Then let’s be smart about it," she grinned, shouldering her sniper rifle. "We’ll scope everything out and plan accordingly."  
"Okay," Deacon agreed. "But we’re gonna take my bike."  
"Fine by me," Alex huffed and grabbed her bag. "Let’s go."

***

Both drifters were squatting on a ledge across from the few houses gathered together right next to a gas station.  
Alex was staring through her scope while Deacon crafted some throwables.  
"Not a soul camping out there," she sighed while sitting up. "A few stray freaks, but that’s it."  
She swiftly mounted a filter to the muzzle to muffle the shots and proceeded to take them out.  
"There’s a grocery store we should check out, and the hardware store might be interesting, too," she threw Deacon a glance.  
"Sounds like a plan," he agreed, stuffing the homemade pipe bombs into his bag before mounting his bike. Alex sat down behind him, carefully wrapping her arms around his body. She felt his heart beating in his chest, strong and steady underneath her palm. He revved the engine and they rolled down the hill, towards the village.  
"We have to keep our eyes open," he murmured, stopping the machine in front of the hardware store. "Guess this place isn’t crawling with marauders for a reason."  
"You think there’s a horde around?" Alex asked quietly as she got off the bike.  
"I don’t know," the Drifter replied, looking around. "But I don’t trust it."

***

"Look what I just found!", Alex exclaimed, tossing him a yellow object. "It’s a squeaky toy, thought Jack might like it."  
Deacon looked at the rubber bone, then Alex’s face, lit with excitement.  
"Jack’s gonna love it!" she chuckled.  
"The noise will drive Boozer crazy," he said, squishing the object in his palm to elicit a squeal from it.  
"I can’t wait to see how much that lil’ mutt has grown since the last time," she said, looking through the shelves of the abandoned store they were checking.  
"So you think we’ll be back at Lost Lake at some point?" he asked carefully.  
"Duh!" she scoffed, rolling her eyes at him.  
"You’ve really given this some thought, haven’t you?" Deacon said, a smile stealing on his lips.  
"I’ve been out it the shit since day one, drifting from camp to camp, city to city. As much as I enjoy my freedom and riding the broken road, I’d like to feel at home somewhere, at least for a while," she said, her voice tired, face serious.  
"I get that," Deacon returned softly. "Lost Lake is the perfect place for a home, the people there are the closest thing to a family I had since the outbreak," he cleared his throat.  
"I figured as much," she said, giving him a crooked smile. "But yeah, I’d like to return to Lost Lake when this is all done."  
  
Their conversation was cut short by the droning of multiple motorbikes coming their way.  
"Crap," Alex sighed, taking cover behind the cash desk, throwing Deacon, who crouched behind the empty shelves, a concerned look.  
"Someone’s here," they heard a rough voice from outside the building. "One of them goddamn Drifter sonsofbitches by the looks of this piece of shit." The guy kicked Deacon's bike and it fell over. The Drifter bared his teeth and pulled his weapon, carefully unlocking and loading it while Alex threw a stealthy glance over the counter, spotting a bunch of people, armed to their teeth, in front of the small store they were hiding in.  
"We’re fucked," she mouthed as Deacon threw her a glance.  
"Find him," they heard the voice from outside again.  
Deacon moved over, the loaded gun in his hands.  
"I’ll try to draw them away, you’ll get the bike and pick me up," he ordered. "I’ll meet you at the historical marker down the street."  
"Try to stay in one piece, Deek," she breathed, giving him a worried look.  
"Will do," he mumbled with a wry grin. "See you in a minute, Shaw." And with that he was out the back door.  
  
"Fuckin’ hell," Deacon cursed as he jammed his knife unter the hood of a car, trying to set off the alarm. He stumbled backwards as soon as the penetrating yowl filled the air, and noticed a bunch of swarmers a few feet away. "Come and get it," he growled and went inside one of the empty buildings.  
Alex crawled toward the small office space they’d passed when they entered the hardware store and listened to the noises outside. The sudden high-pitched sound of a car alarm made her flinch.  
"He’s over there," someone barked. "Let’s fan out, you two, check the shops, we’re gonna have a look at the restaurant. He won’t get out of here without his bike."  
She heard footsteps depart and crouched behind a small window, casting a glance outside. Three guys were running towards one of the buildings on the far left, another one just entered the store on the corner.  
The female drifter quickly ducked when someone shuffled right next to the bike and tried to catch a gaze of the guy on guard duty. To her surprise it was a tired looking woman, clinging on to a 2x4.  
Alex hid behind the open door, rummaged through her bag and pulled out an attractor, set it off and threw it across the room.  
Seconds later, someone jogged in, trying to finde the source of the noise.  
  
Deacon stood in the shadows, pressed to the wall and watched the two marauders enter the building.  
"It’s been a long time since we had someone come through here," one of them said, kicking some rubble out of his way.  
"Don’t get what anyone would want here with all the encampments gone," the other one retorted, moving his flashlight through the room. A sudden noise lured him towards one of the broken windows.  
"What the fuck was that?", he growled, sticking his head outside, scanning the street, when a freak grabbed him by the arm and sunk his teeth into the marauders throat, making him scream in fear. His friend fumbled to load his weapon and managed to fire a shot before Deacon emerged from his hiding place and slit his throat. He paid no attention to the freaker devouring the insides of the man and went after the remaining marauders.  
  
Alex cocked her gun, aiming at the back of the female marauders head.  
"Drop your weapon," she snarled and took a step forward, staring at the woman.  
A shot pierced the silence and in a split second of inattention the marauder turned around, swung her 2x4 and knocked the gun out of Alex’s hand. The drifters eyes grew wide when the weapon slid through the room and a wry grin spread on the other woman’s face as she wielded her piece of wood. Alex dodged the blow and shoved the marauder into a shelf, causing her to drop the lath.  
She clenched her fists and threw a few punches, her opponent tried backing off, stumbled over some debris and fell on her back.  
Alex took her chance and lunged, straddled the enemy and locked her hands around her throat. The marauders fingers clawed at her wrists, causing Alex to press even harder.  
"Give up already," she growled, watching the woman’s face turn red. Her hands fell to her sides, fingers helplessly scraping on the floor, and Alex felt sweat running down her back. The marauder rolled her eyes and closed her lids when a sudden soaring pain went through Alex’s left side. She stared at the shard of glass sticking out her thigh, her hands reflexively grabbing the piece to pull it out. She took a fist to the jaw and yelped in pain, falling to her side.  
"You fuckin’ bitch," the marauder croaked heaving for air, grabbing her 2x4 off the floor. She towered over Alex, who spat blood on the ground while trying to get up.  
"Stay down!" the woman screamed and took the wooden lath to Alex’s back, the hit pressing all air out of her lungs as her chest slammed on the ground. Alex coughed and curled up to protect herself when another blow hit her ribs.  
"You’re dead," the marauder laughed sourly and walked away to pick up Alex’s handgun, while she desperately tried to reach the weapon hidden in her boot.  
Alex winced in pain, seconds later her fingertips grazed the worn out handle of her hunting knife.  
The woman returned, aiming straight at her face, a maniacal grin on her lips. "You should’ve surrendered," she said and gave Alex a pitying look, putting her finger on the trigger.  
A surge of adrenaline rushed through the female Drifter, as she pulled the knife from the shaft of her boot, ramming it into her enemies foot, nailing her to the floor.The woman screamed in agony and the second she dropped the weapon to free her leg, Alex snatched it and put a bullet between her eyes.  
  
"Did you hear that?", one of the marauders in the building asked in a low voice.  
"That fuckin’ Drifter is trying to get his bike back!" another one growled, ran outside and Deacon hurried to hide in the shadows as his colleagues followed. They were jogging towards the hardware store, his motorbike was still out front.  
"Shit, Alex," he hissed, when a bunch of freaks emerged from one of the alleys.  
"Goddammit!", one of the marauders shouted. "Freaks!" He immediately opened fire, luring the small horde to them.  
"Crap, let’s get out of here!", the one with the rough voice ordered and ran towards a bunch of bikes parked on the side of the road. Engines roared as they drove off, the horde still on their asses.  
  
The marauder collapsed next to her and Alex closed her lids to stop the room from spinning. She panted and her whole body felt like it was on fire. She heard shots and the guttural animal noises of a horde, all of a sudden panic trickled down her spine. She desperately tried getting up, but she was too weak. Just when she gave up, someone scurried into the small office and she opened her eyes to find Deacon kneeling next to her.  
"What happened?", he asked, his face a distraught grimace. "I – fuck – your leg."  
"Don’t touch it." Alex said weakly. "Did you get all of them?"  
"No, a bunch of those assholes got away." The Drifter gave her a hand. "Can you walk?" he asked, watching Alex balance on her unharmed leg.  
"No," she let out a muffled groan, grabbing Deacon by his shoulder. "But we gotta get out of here."


	16. I don't think we have a lot of time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and a wounded Alex return to their camp in the woods.

Deacon carefully lowered Alex onto her bed.  
"What do you need?" he asked.  
"Alcohol, disinfectant, needle and thread, warm water, rags or bandages, whatever you can find," she pressed through gritted teeth.  
The Drifter hurried out of the room and returned minutes later, placing all the items on the bedside table.  
"I’m gonna remove the shard now," she said, more to herself than Deacon.  
The Drifter swallowed hard and cringed visibly at the vivid memories of her sewing up her busted lip.  
"I swear to God, if you gonna faint on me, I will kick your ass, St. John," Alex chuckled weakly.  
She placed a rag around the glass and pulled it out in one quick motion, blood started oozing from the injury.  
"Okay, it's just a fleshwound," she assessed. "Now pour some water over the cut so I can try and clean it." Deacon did as he was told and watched the blood-tinted water drip to the wooden floor.  
"Luckily it didn’t go in that far," Alex said, her voice strained as she patted the wound with pieces of a cut-up sterile bandage. "On to the fun part." She opened the bottle of whisky and took a bunch of sips, while Deacon stared at her with a strained expression.  
"Hand me the peroxide," she ordered, bracing herself for what was coming. She poured the liquid directly into the wound.  
"Motherfucker!" she cursed, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself. She splashed some disinfectant onto the needle and threaded the yarn through the hole.  
"In case I’m gonna lose consciousness, you’ll have to finish the job, Deek," she joked, looking him into the eyes.  
"Alex," he said, his voice low. "I’m not sure if I can do this."  
"Shut the fuck up, St. John, don’t be such a wimp," she scoffed and pushed the needle through her flesh, while Deacon looked the other way.  
  
Deacon sat on the porch, staring at his shaking hands. After Alex was done sewing herself up, she had to lie down, so he finished dressing the wound and put her to bed. He had tried his best to hide it from Alex, but seeing her getting hurt always scared him shitless.  
The Drifter sighed and clenched his fists to stop his hands from trembling.  
Feeling this helpless only fueled his anger, so he got up and walked over to one of the other lodges, when the sound of his radio crackling made him jump out of his skin.  
"St. John, come in," O’Brians voice sounded from the radio.  
"What do you want?", Deacon snarled.  
"There have been some – uh – developments," the researcher stuttered.  
"C’mon, spit it out," Deacon ordered as his irritation grew.  
"After you wife’s – Sarah’s – vaccine started working, they began monitoring her more closely," O’Brian explained breathlessly. "At first I had the impression they did it for safety reasons, but now I’m not so sure anymore…"  
Deacon waited for the researcher to continue, but O’Brian remained silent.  
"I’m listening," the Drifter said.  
"Sorry, someone in the hallway – I have to be careful," the voice sounded flustered. "She’s been working on the newest strain for weeks and there have been – uh – some small successes."  
"I know you could do it," Deacon mumbled under his breath.  
"But, yeah – I think the higher-ups are not too happy about it," the researcher swallowed hard. "They seem – I don’t know – worried? They seem to be worried that she might be able to reverse everything."  
"Ain’t that a good thing?" Deacon asked. "After all that’s why NERO took her in."  
"Yeah, no, I'm starting to believe they had other plans," O’Brian breathed. "There are two soldiers with her in the lab at all times now. We can’t speak freely anymore."  
"Fuckin’ Colonel all over again," Deacon growled.  
"What?"  
"Deschutes County Militia? The Colonel, his fuckin’ arc?" the Drifter asked. "Sarah being locked in a cave?"  
"She told me about that," O’Brian mumbled. "But I think these guards are not there to keep her safe."  
Deacons stomach dropped.  
"Just say it, O’Brian," the Drifter said, his tone flat.  
"We need to get your wife out of here," the researcher insisted. "And I don’t think we have a lot of time."

  
***

Deacon tossed and turned in his bed, unable to sleep after he’d spoken to O’Brian. He needed to get Sarah out of there, but he had to come up with some sort of plan first.  
"Goddammit," he cursed under his breath and stared at the ceiling. He shouldn’t have let her go with NERO, for all he knew they were responsible for the mess the whole world was in, and so far they’d done nothing to help fixing it. He clenched his fist, when a scream from the other room jolted him back into reality.  
He found Alex tangled in her sheet, talking in her sleep. She trembled, her face was pale, beads of sweat on her temples.  
_She’s burning up,_ Deacon realized as soon as his palm touched her forehead.  
"Please don’t do this to me," he begged and his heart pounded in fear. He had barely saved Boozer and wasn’t ready for another infection-related tragedy.  
He went over to his room and checked his bags for any medicine he might have forgotten to give to Addy, but he came up empty-handed.  
"Fuckin’ hell," he cursed. "I should’ve checked the MMU more thoroughly." He paced through the kitchen, racking his brains on where to find medicine, when he suddenly remembered how Alex had shoved a blister of pills into her clothes in the NERO unit.  
He rummaged through her jacket, but all the pockets were empty, except for the one holding her lighter.  
"C’mon, Alex, where did you put them?" he looked around and saw her bumbag on the floor next to the bed and found the blister as soon as he opened the zipper.  
"Ibuprofen," he read out loud. He exhaled in relief when he realized that this was an anti-inflammatory painkiller. Better than nothing.  
He gently woke her up.  
"Deacon? What is it?" she croaked as she sat up. "God, I feel like shit."  
"I think you have a fever," he voiced his concern, handing her the pill. "Here, take this." She downed the medicine and curled back up.  
"Can you – stay with me?" she mumbled, closing her eyes. "Please?"  
"I got you," he said softly and laid down on the twin sized mattress with her.  
Finding comfort in someone breathing right next to him, Deacon fell asleep in a matter of minutes.

***

After what felt like ages drifting in and out of sleep, not knowing whether it was day or night, Alex woke up at the break of dawn, feeling well-rested and much better. She looked at Deacon, fast asleep right next to her, a peaceful expression on his face.  
She resisted the sudden urge to put her fingertips against his skin and got up instead.  
Wandering through the lodge, she immediately noticed that Deacon had rationed what was left of their food over the past few days to sustain them both. Empty cans cluttered the kitchen counter and the air inside the lodge was stale, like it’s been a few days since someone cracked a window or the door for that matter.  
She grabbed her leather jacket, backpack and crossbow before she carefully walked outside.


	17. Might as well just give the fuck up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Alex get into a fight over her reckless behavior.

"What the fuck, Alex!" he yelled at her. "What were you doing out in the shit? You're barely back on your feet!"  
"It’s just a scratch," she brushed him off. "We needed supplies, Deek, so I went out and got some."   
"Why the hell would you go back there?!" Deacon barked.  
"I didn’t," she scoffed. "There was an abandoned camp site about a mile into the woods."  
Alex dropped her bag at her feet with a sigh and proceeded to kick off her boots.  
"You were supposed to stay HERE!" he pointed his finger at her and started pacing through the room. "Goddammit, Alex, there is a marauder camp somewhere in those mountains!"  
He wiped the empty cans off the counter, clattering filling the silence, Alex watched him, unruffled by his outburst.  
"I was fuckin’ worried!" he ripped his cap off his head and ran his fingers through his hair.  
She calmly put her crossbow on the table and started emptying her pockets.  
"Got nothing to say, huh?" Deacon snorted, rubbing his eyes, walking towards her.  
"Like it would matter," she retorted, slamming a box of nails on the table.  
"It matters to _me_!" he growled, his face grim with rage. Alex just glared at him with a tired and beaten expression.  
"Might as well just give the fuck up," she said quietly. "I mean, seriously, what the fuck are we doing?"  
"Don’t say that." Deacons voice broke.  
"It’s just the two of us, Deek," she stepped around the table. "You can stop pretending to care."  
"I can’t," he sighed, looking at her defeated. "Because I do care, Alex. All I fucking do is FUCKING care about people. Sarah, Boozer, Rikki, you. Yeah, you got that right, I fucking care about you!"  
He moved in on her and Alex noticed the tears hanging in his lashes the moment he pushed his hands into her hair and pulled her closer.

Their lips collided and she sensed the anger seething inside him as he dragged his teeth across her lips, making her moan into his mouth.  
He pushed her back against the wall, one hand grabbing her neck, the other forcefully pulling the leather jacket off her shoulders. Alex held on to his face, her lips pressed to his. She could feel the warmth of his palms through the worn out fabric of her sweater, where they left fiery trails burning across her skin.  
His hands moved along her stomach, unbuckling the leg holster with deft fingers before moving on to her jeans.  
Deacon broke the kiss and tried catching her gaze, his face silently asking for her consent.  
Alex looked him dead in the eye while dragging her fingers across his chest, his expression softened with a silent sigh.  
She swiftly opened his belt and pulled him closer, their lips locked in another breathless kiss.  
Her fingers tugged at the waistband of his jeans, just as the burning sensation she felt in her stomach travelled to her thighs, where Deacons hands were busy working her pants off.  
Alex dragged the cut off his body and pulled his hoodie and shirt over his head, causing unruly strands of hair to fall into his face. He slung his right arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground with a small grunt, causing Alex to gasp in surprise.  
The Drifter turned around, wiped her haul off the table before gently lowering her back on the wooden surface and burying his face in the crook of her neck. His rough hands were grabbing her hips, moving towards the heat between her thighs. A moan escaped her lips when he pulled her soaked underwear aside and pushed his thumb into her wet folds. His beard grazed her face, just before his lips brushed against hers again.  
Alex dug her hands into his hair and arched her back in a desperate attempt to get closer to him. A soft sigh seeped from her mouth as Deacons finger circled her clit.  
"God, Deacon," she moaned, her browns knitted in concentration. She heard the soft thud of something dropping to the floor, felt his fingers gripping her leg and then he buried himself inside her with a low groan.

He started moving, slow and steady, giving her time to adjust. His kisses were demanding, hunger barely reigned in, his fingertips pulling at her skin. Without warning he broke away and straightened up, using his left hand to support himself, the right one to pull her closer to the edge of the tabletop. Alex slung her legs around his lower back, urging him deeper into her, he let his head fall back, a slight grin crossing his lips between hoarse breaths. A static crackle spread throughout her entire body with every thrust, accompanied by strained creaks of the wooden furniture underneath their bodies.

Deacon felt a long forgotten sensation building up in his stomach and he realized that he wouldn’t last much longer.  
"Shit!", he exclaimed, his voice ragged, dripping with need. "Alex, I…"  
"Don’t stop," she whispered looking at him wild eyed. "I’m close."  
He towered over her, tendons in his neck strained, his eyes clenched shut like it took him all the willpower he got left not to go over the edge right in this moment. His hips relentlessly slammed into hers and a string of soft moans seeping from her lips made him tremble.

Alex couldn’t remember when she’d felt this alive for the last time, her skin tingling with electricity, blood rushing in her ears. She looked at Deacon, trying to take in every little detail of him being caught up in this moment, like the way he furrowed his brows, his mouth with lips slightly parted, letting out the occasional grunt of pleasure, while he pushed into her just right.  
"Fuck," he growled as he collapsed over her body, bringing his face next to her cheek. "I’m gonna come." She felt his hot breath grazing her ear, followed by a choked up moan.  
Seeing him unravel like that gave her a new high, inching her closer to the edge. She turned her head, bringing her lips to his ear.  
"Fuck me, Deacon," she whispered.  
Another rasp moan left his throat as he pushed himself even deeper into her, sending shocks through her spine. Alex felt it coming, the electricity gathering in her center, building up until she couldn’t take it anymore, ready to unleash with the strength of a thunderbolt.  
"Oh Deacon," she cried out as stars exploded behind her lids and she rhythmically clenched around him, causing him to tip over as well.  
"Fuck," he sighed, barely audible, as he felt his muscles tense before he finally released into her with a low groan.

***

Deacon caught himself staring at Alex, curled up on the mattress underneath a stained, threadbare blanket, a bunched-up pillow under her head. Her face was so relaxed, peaceful even, he noticed the soft curve of her brows, the few freckles that sprinkled her nose, thin strands of hair falling onto her lips, moving with her every breath.  
He remembered how he had always envied her for her ability to sleep despite everything that was going on outside. They were stuck in the middle of the shit and she’d lay down, close her eyes and pass out, just like that, leaving him and Boozer to care for their camp.  
The Drifter smiled lightly at the memory and got up to get some air.  
Only putting on his shirt and jeans before quietly slipping into his boots, he snuck out of the cabin to clear his head.

The night was brisk and clear, and he knew that it wouldn’t be long until the winter would make the wilderness harsh and unforgiving. He was running out of time if he still wanted to find Sarah. That feeling of restlessness he’d fought for the past days flared up again, like there was something in the back of his head he’d forgotten, but how could he forget that Sarah was alive, somewhere close to Eugene, with O’Brian?  
He thought about Alex, the feeling of her skin against his, the softness of her gaze, the warmth of her palms holding his face.  
Oh, how he tried fighting it, but with her, resistance was futile. In all those small moments between them, standing on a radio tower, the pier at Lost Lake, locked in a service tunnel, stranded in a thunder storm, abandoned houses, he knew. He had known it for quite some time, but now there was no denying it anymore. He was falling for Alex, despite his feelings for Sarah. But those came with baggage, a life they’d shared before the outbreak, promises they’d made to each other, vows and rings.  
With Alex, everything was different, easier somehow. There was no before, there were no memories from better days. All they had was here and now, this world and each other.  
"St. John, you fucking idiot," Deacon hissed through clenched teeth. "What are you doing?!"

***

A crackling sound blared into the silence and Alex was wide awake within seconds. The noise came from somewhere near the table, she carefully got up, grabbed her boot knife and walked around the furniture. She looked for the source of the crackling, but there was nothing on the floor besides her bag and Deacons clothes.  
She carefully lifted Deacons sweater off the pile and found the culprit: his radio; someone was trying to contact him in the middle of the night.  
Another round of the static came out of the speaker, followed by a female voice that made Alex’s stomach drop.  
"Deacon, come in. Deacon St. John, do you copy?" then deafening silence.  
Alex just stood there, frozen, still holding the sweater, staring at the radio.  
A crackle, then "Deek, come in. It’s me, Sarah," Alex heard her sigh on the other end of the line. "Deek, I need to talk to you. I know you’re there." Silence. The female Drifter felt her heart pounding in her chest as she dropped the sweater back on the radio to muffle the static buzz.  
"Deacon, come in… _Please,_ " were the last words she heard before Sarah finally gave up.  
  
Minutes later Deacon entered the lodge and she hurried to pretend to be asleep. Despite her heart still hammering, she willed herself to breathe slow and steady as he slipped out of his boots and went to lay down next to her on the lumpy mattress.  
_I know you’re there_ , Sarahs voice echoed in her head. The second his wife said those words it dawned on her. Deacon knew she was alive, he must’ve known for quite some time, but he hadn’t said a word all those days they’d spent on the road together. White hot rage gnawed at her insides and she felt tears burning behind her lids as she forced herself to take a few deep breaths through her nose.  
It had taken her countless sleepless nights, hours on the bike and miles away from home to finally admit to herself that something between them had shifted. She couldn’t exactly say when it happened, it felt more like something that had gradually grown inside her. Alex had never intended to act on it, but then Deacon’s outburst happened. Her heart palpitated painfully inside her chest as she remembered the way his lips brushed against hers and how his hands roamed her body as they shared that intimate moment in the lodge.  
_Fuck_ , she thought in a twinge of self-pity, knowing that she wouldn’t sleep a wink all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you there'd be smut :D
> 
> Thanks for hanging in there and reading this, feedback is always welcome :)


	18. So what's our plan?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Deacon can't seem to catch a break.

Deacon was rudely awakened by the sound of bursting wood. His own confusion was mirrored by Alex’s puzzled expression.  
"What the –," she asked, her voice still rough, when they suddenly heard engines revving outside.  
"Shit, our bikes!" Deacon jumped up and ran to the porch, only to find the door of the shed levered out. He looked around and spotted two marauders riding off towards the woods with their machines. "Fuck!", he yelled and ran his fingers through his hair.  
Alex stormed outside, Deacons assault rifle in her hands. She lowered it as soon as she saw the Drifter standing in front of the empty shed.  
"Crap," she exclaimed. "How did they find us?"  
Deacon turned around, his face grim. "Maybe they followed us here a few days ago."  
"Fuckin’ hell," she scoffed as she felt anger bubbling up in her chest.  
"Doesn’t matter anymore," he said, walking past her. "We just gotta go, get our bikes back."  
  
Alex led Deacon through the woods, along the path to the camp she’d found the other day. There’d been a tense silence between them since they’d left the lodge, knowing that they wouldn’t come back any time soon. She looked at her feet and thought about the fact, that Sarah tried reaching Deacon in the middle of the night, knowing that he was out there. Alex threw a glance over her shoulder, but Deacon just stared into the void, his face closed off and angry. A part of her wanted to tell him, let him know that Sarah was alive, looking for him so they could finally have their happy ending. The other part, however, urged her to keep her mouth shut for her own selfish reasons.  
She softly shook her head to rid herself of the intrusive thoughts, when her gaze got caught by a group of tents between the trees. Alex stopped and waited for Deacon to catch up.  
  
"That’s the camp I told you about," she said, grabbing her sniper rifle. Deacon pulled a grimace and took the assault rifle off his back.  
Alex scoped the clearing, but everything appeared to be deserted.  
"I can’t see anyone," she sighed. "But it looks like they took the shit I left there yesterday."  
Deacon carefully walked between the abandoned tents, barrels and makeshift walls and checked for any hints on the whereabouts of the marauders.  
He found tire tracks in the mud and signaled Alex to come over.  
"They must’ve passed this camp," he mused, keeping his gaze trained on the tracks that went up the hill. "There’s a fire in the distance."  
Alex looked over his shoulder and tried to spot a column of smoke against the grey sky.  
"Guess we found their hiding hole," Deacon growled. "Those sonsofbitches are gonna regret taking our shit."  
  
Deacon noticed the Forest Service Lookout sitting on a glade first. He held out his arm to keep Alex from moving any further towards the encampment.  
"They’ve got a sniper," he said quietly, pulling her into the bushes next to the path. The lookout was pretty similar to the one he and Boozer had set up camp in on O’Leary Mountain, except for the fact that the marauders had closed the mesh fence from prying eyes with pieces of wood. _Keep out,_ he read the hastily painted, red letters on the wooden surface, _We’ll shoot on sight._  
"How do we get in there?" Alex breathed.  
"We will find a way," Deacon assured her. "But we’ll have to get closer for that." He kept his eyes on the sniper walking the catwalk on top of the tower.  
"I can take him out," Alex whispered. "I’ll have to move around the camp to get a clear shot though."  
"As soon as that’s taken care of, I’ll try to find an easy a way in," Deacon decided. "Be careful."  
  
Alex slowly moved through the foliage, not letting the sniper out of sight. In case he’d spot her crawling through the bushes, she’d be fucked. Hiding behind a bunch of trees she finally saw the opportunity for a clear shot. The female drifter made sure she had a suppressor equipped and aimed for the guys head. His skull exploded seconds after she’d pulled the trigger, his lifeless body got thrown against the wall, where it slid to the ground, leaving bloody marks on the wood.  
  
Deacon saw the sniper stagger and fall to the floor, not wasting any time, he hurried along the fence and found a small part where the wire mesh on top had come off. He stealthily climbed over and landed without making a sound. He threw a quick glance around the camp and spotted one of the marauders they’d encountered the other night strapping stuff to his drifter bike.  
"Fuckin’ asshole," he hissed and moved in on the guy, stabbing him in the throat as soon as he got close enough. "That’s what you get for messing with my shit."  
He checked a small shed and then went for the tower, silently sneaking up the stairs.  
The room on top was empty, a meager breakfast and two mugs on the table were the only remnants of the marauders presence. An uneasy feeling spread throughout his body as he realized that those guys could’ve easily been him and Boozer a few months ago. Two Drifters, holed up on a mountain, gearing up to go north. He sighed and stepped out on the catwalk, not paying any attention to the corpse at his feet as he let Alex know that the camp was clear.  
  
"So what’s our plan?" Alex asked, sitting on the table in the middle of the room, looking at the Drifter standing in the doorway.  
"I’m gonna get rid of the corpses," Deacon answered, his tone gruff and tired. "After that I’ll check the bikes, we’ll pack everything we need and head out in the morning." He turned around to leave the tower.  
"Deacon," Alex called out, causing him to stop in his tracks. He just stood there, shooting her a questioning gaze, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. "Never mind – it’s nothing." She let her head hang. "It’s okay, go," she urged him and he finally walked down the stairs.  
  
A few minutes later she stepped outside and watched Deacon carry the bodies of the marauders into the woods. An orange glow illuminated the darkness between the trees and she knew that Deacon had shown them compassion by burning their remains so they wouldn’t be violated by the freaks. She looked at the Drifters silhouette walking towards the camp, and saw her own feelings of defeat mirrored in his hanging shoulders.  
He lifted his hand as a greeting and gave her a wry grin before he turned to tend to the bikes.  
  
Alex was rummaging through drawers, cupboards and the marauders backpacks, when she heard Deacon swear downstairs. She went out and looked over the banister, only to see him kicking his bike.  
"Those assholes drained both our tanks on the way here," he cursed. "Goddammit!"  
"What about the barrel over there?" Alex asked, pointing at the make-shift gast station.  
"I put all the leftover gasoline in my tank, but it was just a sip," he ripped his cap off his head and bunched it in his fist. "How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?!"  
Alex moved around the catwalk and stared into the distance.  
"The gas station we went to check the other day is about four miles, maybe five down the hill," she said, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. "If we leave now, we might make it back before dusk."  
"I’ll go," the Drifter said in a tone that admitted no contradiction. "Someone needs to keep an eye on our shit so it doesn’t get stolen again."  
"Fine!" Alex huffed, giving him a dirty look before she retreated back inside.

***

Deacon was marching up the hill, cursing at the heavy gas canister, when the radio strapped to his bag crackled, making his heart skip a beat.  
"Fuckin’ O’Brian," he growled and ripped the device off the handle.  
"Deek, are you there?" Sarahs voice sounded. Deacons stomach dropped and he hurried to answer.  
"Sarah" he said softly. "I – uh – O’Brian –"  
"Deek, listen to me," she interrupted him, low and serious. "NERO revoked my access to the lab, I haven’t seen James for days. They kept me locked in my quarters, with two guards outside my door at all times for the past days, today was the first time I was allowed to leave the room again."  
"Yeah, O’Brian mentioned something like that," Deacon sighed.  
"They took me to this commission, where they asked all kinds of questions about my vaccine," she continued, her tone falling flat. "I was told I’d be transferred to another facility close to Portland in a couple of days." Deacon listened in silence.  
"NERO never wanted to help the people," her voice was merely a whisper. "They never wanted to find a cure."  
"No," Deacon breathed, the hair in the back of his neck rising.  
"And now they’re planning to get rid of anyone who’d be able to stop them," she swallowed hard. "I need to get the fuck out of here."

He walked in the dark, through the undergrowth, calm and collected, going over their plan again.  
After Sarah had told him all she knew about her current location somewhere in the Willamette National Forest, he’d tasked her with finding a way to send him her exact coordinates. He and Alex had a couple of days to make it to their destination and come up with a way to enter a government facility, provided Sarah would come through with her end of the plan.  
Their conversation was cut short by a NERO guard at her door, right after he charged her with trusting no one but O’Brian.  
He knew that she could do it, his wife was clever enough to find a way out. She never needed him to be her knight in shining armor, after all she was the one who managed to outsmart the Colonel in the end, but he’d be there anyway.  
Because when he vowed to never leave her, he meant it.  
  
The Drifter stepped into the encampment, illuminated by two small fires burning in barrels. He walked over to the bikes and set the canister on the ground.  
Sighing heavily, he sat down on a tree trunk next to the fireplace.  
There was no way he could keep this from Alex any longer, he would have to tell her everything he knew for this plan to work.  
"Fuck," he hissed, burying his face in his hands.  
Deacon was angry at himself for letting his feelings for Alex cloud his judgement for such a long time, although he knew better. He should have played with open cards from the beginning and they could’ve figured everything out together.  
"St. John, you stupid sonofabitch," he mumbled, rubbing his face.  
He decided to tell her in the morning, knowing full well that it was ultimately her decision if she still wanted to help him, but he wasn’t ready to lose her already.  
Deacon got up, grabbed the gasoline canister and started filling up those tanks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang in there, kiddos, we're almost at the end of this wild journey :)


	19. I don't want this to end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the unspoken fact of Sarah being alive ultimately coming between them, Deacon needs to make a choice

Alex stood hidden in a dark corner of the catwalk and watched Deacon taking care of the motorbikes. She felt all the things left unsaid between them brewing inside her, which made her sure that she wouldn’t be able to hold it in much longer. Inside her head she’d confronted him a dozen times, but the outcome remained the same: he’d always chose Sarah.  
Not that she’d judge him for that, their love was something special and she would never ask him to give up what they had, but it hurt nonetheless. Deacon was the first guy who’d made her feel something long forgotten, something that made her believe there were still things worth fighting for.  
His footsteps on the metal staircase jerked her out of her spiraling throughs and Alex braced herself for what was to come.  
  
"When were you going to tell me?", she asked quietly while looking over the treeline, almost making him jump out of his skin.  
"The fuck, Alex!" he cursed. "What are you hiding in the dark for?"  
"I know she’s alive," she finally found the strength to look at him.  
Deacon felt a cold sensation trickling down his spine, spreading through his body when he saw the pain in her eyes, since he never intended to hurt her. He had no clue how she found out, but he knew that this situation had been inevitable from the beginning. He leaned on the banister of the tower and sighed.  
"How long have you known that your wife is alive?" she asked, her voice breaking. "When did you last speak to Sarah?" He knew what she was getting at, but refused to answer her question.  
"It doesn’t matter," he said quietly, looking at her.  
"It matters _to me_ ," she retorted harshly. "I shouldn’t have slept with you."  
It pained him to find out she regretted what had happened between them when he realized he did not. Hell, he didn’t even know what he felt right now, he just knew that in this air of fatalism nothing made sense anymore. He stepped away from the handrail and walked over, coming to a halt in front of Alex, looking into her eyes.  
"I am falling for you," he said, his voice low, every syllable brushing against her lips.  
"Don’t say that," Alex breathed and lowered her gaze.  
"But it’s the truth," he sighed, barely an inch between their lips.  
"Deacon…", she pleaded softly.  
"Tell me what to do here," he murmured and his nose grazed hers. "Cause I really don’t know anymore." Alex’s heart pounded in her chest, every fiber of her being screamed to finally close the space between them. She felt Deacons hand on her arm, his beard brushing against her upper lip.  
He made it impossible for her to think clearly with his face this close to hers.  
Deacon whispered her name, the look in his eyes made her stomach drop. She felt her resistance crumble and her lips met his in a heartbeat.  
  
Alex urged him inside, pushing his back against the wooden window frame, her hands dragging at his clothes. He opened the door while pulling her sweater over her head, throwing it on a workbench right next to the entrance.  
Alex stepped out of her shoes, her fingers unbuckling his leg holster and belt, her teeth worrying his bottom lip. A hoarse moan escaped his throat, he kicked off his boots somewhere next to the table in the middle and pushed her jeans down her hips. She broke the kiss and firmly planted her palm on his heart to stop him for a second. Deacon shivered when Alex traced the ornate dagger decorating his chest with her fingertips, moving further down his stomach, towards the button of his jeans, seconds later it pooled around his ankles.  
Alex put her left hand on the side of his jaw, her thumb pressed to his lips.  
He stood there in silence, looking at her with a cautious expression, the light of the kerosene lamp basking his face in an orange glow, the flame dancing in his eyes.  
She gently forced his head to the side so she could have one last look at the name immortalized on his skin, before she pressed her lips to his neck.

Deacon sighed and pulled her closer, his hands traveling up her back, unclasping her bra with deft fingers. She felt the urgency in his movements as well as his arousal and led him towards the wooden bed in the corner of the room. Alex slid her right hand behind the waistband of his briefs and worked it along his length, causing him to buck into her. A raspy moan fell from his lips when she grazed his tip as she used her other hand to work the remaining piece of clothing down his legs.  
She pushed him onto the mattress and was amused by his astounded expression. He looked skinny and beaten compared to the night at the old safehouse up in the Cascades weeks ago, his upper body was covered in scars and bruises, the graze on his shoulder was still red and barely healed, but she didn’t mind at all. Their bodies held stories of the past four years and a life lived well before that and there was a broken and poetic beauty to it.

He kept his eyes trained on her as she stepped away from the bed, pulling the bra straps off her shoulders. A mischievous smile tugged at her lips as she shimmied out of her jeans and felt the tension between them fill the room. She watched him rub his face as she slowly moved her panties down her thighs and stepped out of them. A well-known sensation of heat formed in her stomach as the casually moved her hands downwards.  
"Fuck, Alex," Deacon croaked, grabbing his length.  
"Keep your hands on the bed," she ordered softly, her fingers circling her clit and Deacon did as he was told.  
"Jesus, woman," he cursed with a strained tone and leaned back, watching her pleasure herself.  
She had to bite back a chuckle when his mouth fell open as she dragged her fingers along her body and put them in her mouth, tasting herself.  
The heat spread to her thighs, her body was aching for release, so she took a few steps towards the bed, causing Deacon to prop himself up.

She climbed onto the mattress and straddled him, anchoring herself with one hand, wrapping the other one around him.  
Deacon groaned at her soft touch as she slid his tip along her entrance, covering him with her wetness.  
She watched him fall apart underneath her body as she lingered a few seconds before she finally took him in.  
He moaned and tried rearing up, but Alex held him down on the mattress and began to move ever so slowly. She kept her hand pressed to his chest until she’d found her rhythm. As soon as Alex lifted her palm, Deacon sat up and pushed his hands into her hair and pulled her closer for another impassioned kiss. He dug his fingers into her soft parts, leaving bruises she’d keep for weeks, but she couldn’t care less.  
They lost track of time as their bodies moved in sync in the dimly lit room. Deacon kept his face buried in the crook of her neck, she could feel his hot, panting breaths against her skin. Alex planted a soft kiss on his head and ran her fingers through his hair, wishing this moment could last forever. Deacon pulled back, his gaze trying to catch hers as he watched her push strands of hair behind her ears, a wry grin on her lips. He put his arm around her waist to hold her close as he turned her on her back.  
She moaned softly as he picked up the pace and buried himself deeper inside her, making her claw at the sheets above her head.

"God, Deek," she sighed, arching her back while his lips pressed impetuous kisses onto her collarbone. He pushed into her just right and every move he made brought her closer to the edge.  
"Deacon," she pleaded, the urgency in her voice causing him to pause and look at her. "I won’t last much longer."  
"Well, too bad," he said hoarsely and stopped moving to tease her. A sly smile curled his lips. "Cause I could go all night, you know."  
Alex rolled her eyes at him and snorted.  
"I’m serious," he looked into her eyes, his voice low. "I don’t want this to end."  
He brushed a strand of hair out of her face and kissed her gently, moaning into her mouth as he dove into her again.

***

Alex woke up at dawn, blueish twilight filling the abandoned Forest Service watchtower. Deacon was fast asleep next to her, his arm placed across her chest, his body barely covered by the threadbare sheet. Her heart was heavy with sorrow, but she knew this could only go one way. She gently removed his arm and got up, collected her clothes and dressed in a hurry. She carefully rummaged through some drawers, found an old pencil and a piece of paper and sat down at the table to write a letter with all the things she could never say to him.  
She heard him tossing in the sheets and threw a quick glance over her shoulder, but he was still sleeping. She sighed as she folded the letter and put in on the table, held in place by the yellow chew toy. Alex took one last look at Deacon, shouldered her bag and weapons, and just like that, she was out the door.  
She hurried towards the green machine parked in the shed, grabbed it by the handlebar and pushed it over to the gate. The female Drifter carefully opened the mesh fence, just so that the gap was big enough for her bike and bolted it shut after she made it to the other side. Alex mounted the machine and rolled a few meters before she fired up the engine and took off into the quiet morning.

Deacon woke up freezing, immediately alarmed by the empty spot next to him. He quickly got up and looked around the tower.  
"Oh Alex," he sighed the second he spotted the chew toy in the middle of the table, a folded sheet of paper underneath it. He didn’t need to check downstairs to know that she was gone for good this time. He leaned on the table and let his head hang, the sudden feeling of loneliness leaving him breathless.  
"Fuck!", Deacon growled, grabbing the table and throwing it on the side.  
After that he just stood in the middle of the room, fists clenched, breathing heavily, trying to calm the raging storm inside his chest.


	20. Thank God you're here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when Deacon is about to lose all hope, someone makes contact again

A day had passed since Alex had left and Deacon sat on the stairs of the service tower, staring into the void, when his radio started crackling.  
"St. John, come in," the voice sounded from the speaker. "It’s O’Brian."  
"I am done talking to you, O’Brian," Deacon growled. "St. John out."  
"Wait, Drifter, it’s important," O’Brian appeased.  
"You know what's important?" Deacon mocked the researcher. "Saving my goddamn innocent wife from NERO!"  
He got up and started pacing on the platform.  
"But you failed me – again!" he yelled, not able to control the rage that had been simmering inside him for days.  
"Believe me, I know –," followed by an exasperated sigh on the other side. "I need your help, Deacon. I’m gonna send you coordinates, and I need you to be there in an hour."  
"Go fuck yourself, O’Brian," Deacon scoffed. "Fuck you and your coordinates."  
"You fuck–," the researcher collected himself. "If you wanna save your wife, I need you to be there in an hour, St. John."  
"Yeah right," the Drifter retorted, ready to throw his radio into the woods.  
"Just fuckin’ do it, Deacon", O'Brian yelled through the radio, his voice clouded with panic.  
"Goddammit O’Brian," he gnarled.  
"Do it," O’Brian implored. "I’ll see you in an hour."  
"Sonofabitch!", the Drifter cursed, checking the transmission. If he wanted to make it in time, he had to leave now. He stormed inside, grabbing weapons, ammo and his bag. He was halfway out the door when he changed his mind, went back, picked the yellow squeaky toy and the letter off the floor and ran to his bike.  
  
Alex was standing at a gas station, refilling her tank when she heard an ominous droning coming closer. She checked the road for motorcycles but there was no one around, not even in the distance. The droning grew louder, and Alex finally realized that the noise was above her and just as she looked at the sky, she spotted the ghost-like black shape of a NERO chopper.  
"Fuck, that can’t be good," she murmured, fighting the urge to jump on her bike and follow the mysterious aircraft. She trained her eyes on it until it disappeared behind the mountains, right next to the pass she’d just crossed. Fear trickled down her spine as she realized that the probably were out here for a reason.  
"Dammit, St. John," she cursed, firing up her engine before drifting around the corner to follow NERO.

***

Deacon stood in the middle of nowhere, his fist clenched around that piece of paper he’d grabbed off the floor before he left the watchtower in a hurry, when the low hum of an engine jolted him back to reality.  
"Fuckin’ finally, O’Brian," he groaned, shoving the paper into his jeans.  
He stared at the white hazmat suit on the bike approaching him and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.  
"It’s about fuckin’ time," he shouted, slightly annoyed.  
"There’s been a slight change of plans," a distorted voice came through the suits radio before he grabbed his helmet and unlocked it.  
Blonde hair, gathered in a messy bun, came to light and Deacons heart sank to his knees.  
"Sarah," he stammered. She looked at him with tears in her eyes before she threw her arms around him.  
"Thank God you’re here," she breathed, pressing her cheek to his.  
"How did you get out of there?" Deacon asked confused. Sarah pulled away and fumbled on the front zipper of the NERO overall she was wearing.  
"James got me this suit and made sure I had access to a bike," she explained, her voice strained, shimmying out of her white cocoon. "But they are already onto us. NERO deployed one of their choppers minutes after I left the compound, we don’t have much time."  
"We might have a chance if we can make it to the woods," Deacon said grimly and let his gaze wander along the horizon. "Here, take this." He handed Sarah his assault rifle, which she strapped to her back. She looked at him with a mysterious glint in her eyes before she turned around and mounted her bike.  
"Are you sure you're good to drive by yourself?" he asked, his arms crossed in front of his chest.  
Sarah fired up the engine and revved it as she passed Deacon. "I got this, Deek."

***

Deacon and Sarah had been riding in silence for close to an hour when Deacon finally dared to ask her what had happened at the NERO facility.  
He heard her swallow hard before she started talking.  
"I’ve been locked in my office for days, so I used the time to revisit my notes and sort through the stuff I might need to take with me, when I heard something outside. Hell, I’ve never been more scared in my entire life," she sighed. "I thought they’d finally come for me."  
The Drifter remained silent and waited for her to continue her story.  
"I remember my heart racing like crazy when someone slipped into the room, but it was James. He handed me the suit and told me to put it on, not without making sure that I took all my shit. When we stepped outside, both guards were lying on the floor. There was no way to tell if they were dead or just unconscious." She scoffed.  
"James basically made me jog through the whole compound, until we arrived at a security door, that led to some kind of parking space. There were choppers, humvees, quads and motorbikes, it looked like a military base to be honest. We must've passed some kind of sensor when we stepped outside, which triggered an alarm. God, that fucking noise, so loud you could hear it for miles."  
Sarah's voice trailed off, she remembered the panic in James' tone, the urgency in his movements as he steered her through the lot. The fear prickling in the back of her head, as the both of them heard the footsteps approaching. He led me to a bike and threw me the keys before he shouted something like ‚I hope your husband taught you how to ride this thing‘ as he ran towards the gate. The first soldiers spilled out of the door and opened fire, while I hurried to get the machine going. There was no time to say goodbye, James just opened the gate for me and I took off," her strained tone made Deacons heart sink in sorrow.  
"God, I hope they didn’t kill him," Sarah breathed.

Alex kept trailing the NERO chopper from a safe distance, driving between trees with her lights out slowed her down, but she didn’t wanna risk being seen. By now she was sure they were looking for Deacon, as they were flying towards the woods they had been camping out in for the past few weeks. Her heart palpitated painfully when the chopper suddenly turned by and slowed down in the distance.  
"Shit!" she hissed through clenched teeth and revved the engine, desperately hoping she’d arrive in time.

Deacon knew they were lost the second he heard the droning of the helo behind them.  
"They’re here!" Sarah shouted over the radio.  
"Let’s try getting over to this trail into the woods, maybe we’re able to lose them this way," Deacon said before he looked over his shoulder. His heart sank when he saw that they were only a few hundred meters behind them. He accelerated and maneuvered in front of Sarah.  
"Follow me," he said, his voice flat and pressed, before he drifted across the grassy slope and went up a muddy trail towards the tree line. He made sure that Sarah was still tracking him as he zigzagged through the trees, but she handled it with ease. A light smile tugged at the corners of his lips when he thought about the fact that all the times he’d given her lessons in the backcountry he somehow prepared her for this exact moment.  
"Fuck!", he heard Sarahs voice and he immediately knew what she meant when he spotted the valley at the end of the wooden patch they were crossing with their bikes.

As soon as they drove into the plain, the soldiers on the chopper opened fire on them and Deacon felt swarms of bullets flying by.  
"We have to get the hell out of here!" he yelled, barely able to contain the fear in his voice.  
"Shit, Deacon!", he heard Sarah scream, right before he heard a crash and metal grinding against the ground. When he turned around, he saw a thick stream of black smoke and the helo landing in the distance.  
"Sarah," he shouted and stopped his bike. "I’m coming." He grabbed his handgun and loaded it while he ran towards the place where he suspected her, when a few shots missed him by a hair.  
He took cover behind a rock and spotted Sarah crouching behind her demolished bike, unloading her magazine at the NERO soldiers spilling from the chopper.

The Drifter fired a few well-trained shots at the cockpit, taking out the pilot and one of the soldiers in the process.  
Sarah managed to eradicate two of the goons by blowing up their oxygen tanks, but they adjusted their tactics accordingly and began to flank her from both sides. A sudden cold sensation spread throughout his entire body as he realized that they were running out of time.  
"Leave her the fuck alone!" Deacon growled, shooting one of them in the leg, another one in the face, when someone suddenly locked their arm around his throat, jerking him backwards. His gun was smacked out of his fingers, his arm forcefully pulled and twisted behind his back.  
The drifter fought like hell but wasn’t able to shake the iron grip of his opponent, he helplessly had to watch Sarah trying to fend off another NERO soldier before she took the bottom of his rifle to the face and dropped her weapon.


	21. There’s nothing anyone can do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Deacon are on the run, but NERO is closing in.  
> 

"Sarah!" his hoarse scream travelled trough the night.  
Deacon felt his consciousness fading as the NERO soldier tightened his chokehold.  
He tried pulling at the arm restricting his airflow, but his fingers didn’t comply anymore, blackness started blurring his field of vision.  
There was nothing he could do to help Sarah, who was being dragged towards the waiting helo by another yellow-spacesuit-clad goon, unimpressed by her kicking and screaming, he effortlessly lifted her off the grass.

_This can’t be the end_ , Deacon thought, desperation burning in his chest. He felt his knees weaken as he caught the look of sheer terror on Sarah’s face, so he gathered what was left of his strength for yet another futile attempt to fend off his attacker, when a shot rang through the valley, echoing off the surrounding mountains.  
The NERO soldier got thrown to the ground and Deacon, now free, stumbled a few steps backwards before he fell to his knees, coughing and heaving for air.  
He didn’t need to check if the soldier was still alive, he could feel his warm blood drying on the side of his face.  
The Drifter pulled the knife from his boot and pushed himself up, taking wary steps towards Sarah and the other goon, who pulled his handgun on him.  
"Back the fuck off!" he yelled, pressing the muzzle to Sarahs temple, who immediately froze.  
"Let her go and take me instead!", Deacon tried to negotiate, causing the soldier to let out a dry laugh.  
"We have no use for you, Drifter," he growled, pulling Sarah further away.  
  
Alex kneeled in a bush on a small plateau overlooking the scene, she knew that she’d have to be fast if she wanted to save Deacon and Sarah. Quickly pulling the BFG off her back, she lay down on the ground and took a look through the scope.  
Deacon was on the brink of passing out, his movements were getting slower and more powerless with every second.  
She carefully aimed for the soldiers neck, pushing away the thought that this was the only shot she’d get.  
Steadying herself with her elbow, the inhaled sharply and held her breath, following the ever so small movements of the NERO soldier wrangling Deacon. Her heart skipped a beat as she pulled the trigger, a split second later his throat exploded, covering Deacons face in blood squirting from his jugular.  
"C’mon, Deek, get the fuck up," she mumbled while keeping an eye on him as he slowly pulled himself together.  
"Shit!" she cursed as she realized she couldn’t get a clean shot at the other guy cause he’d already made it halfway towards the helo.  
She watched Deacon pull his boot knife before he took a few steps. After a short discussion he dropped it to the ground and sunk to his knees, lifting his hands in front of his chest.

"You idiot, what are you doing?!", Alex hissed when a movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention.  
A quad came to a halt on the sandy path leading to the valley. Someone in a white hazmat suit jumped off it, unholstered a gun and ran towards the helo, taking cover in the bushes surrounding the scene.  
"Fuckin’ hell!" Alex groaned the second she lost sight, fear worming its way into her insides. She swung the sniper rifle to her back and hurried down the hill, praying that she’d make it in time when another shot pierced the unnatural silence of the night.  
Alex’s heart dropped when she witnessed the soldier lower his weapon right before Sarah fell to the ground. She pressed her hand to her lips to muffle the sob building in her throat as she saw Deacon stumbling towards his wife, desperately screaming her name, still in shock she didn’t even see the soldier fall to his knees while clenching his throat.  
  
Deacon realized that there was something much more painful than living with the uncertainty about your wife’s fate: helplessly watching her die by the hand of another person.  
The definitiveness of this moment hit him like a freight train, he cried out her name like a wounded animal, his whole body on the brink of collapsing as he stumbled towards Sarah.  
He barely noticed the NERO soldier going down, let alone the person climbing through the chopper.  
He quickly moved his palms from her body to her head, frantically looking for a bullet wound.  
When he carefully lifted her up, Sarahs lids fluttered and she opened her eyes.  
"What happened?" she asked, eyebrows raised in confusion.  
A wave of relief flooded him, he pulled her face to his chest and felt her fingertips digging at his shoulder blades.  
"I thought I’d lost you," he croaked, pressing his cheek to her hair.  
"I’m okay," she whispered breathlessly and sniffled. "I’m okay Deacon." He felt tears streaming down his face as he opened his eyes and spotted a well-known hazmat suit next to the black NERO chopper.

"Drifter," O’Brian greeted him, holstering his weapon. Deacon gently pushed Sarah away before he got up and stormed towards the researcher.  
"You asshole _promised_ to keep her safe!" he yelled, clenching his fists, causing O’Brian to back away.  
"That’s what I did," he retorted, keeping an eye on the aggravated Drifter.  
"Uh yeah?" Deacon scoffed, pacing in front of O’Brian who still kept his distance. "How come your fucking goons were out here, hunting us down?"  
"They’re not my goons," O’Brian sighed before he dropped his shoulders. "You should know that by now."  
"Like I give a shit!", Deacon growled, closing in on him.  
"Believe me or not, I’m glad to see you again." O’Brian let out a stifled laugh. "You remember, I told you, the infected were evolving?"  
Deacon rolled his eyes and dismissed his words with a lax gesture. O’Brian put both hands to his helmet and with a hiss of air he unlatched the secure lock.  
The Drifters eyes grew wide the moment the bald head emerged from behind the blacked out visor. An almost painful-looking grin distorted the researchers pale, vein-marbled face.

"What the fuck?!"  
"The samples you gave me – the blood, it was yours!" Sarah exclaimed, getting off the ground, walking towards O’Brian. "Shit, James, why didn’t you say something?"  
"The strain of the virus, its effects on the human nervous and lymphatic systems is accelerating at an exponential rate," the researcher explained. He choked and his voice suddenly dropped an octave lower. "They knew all along, of course. That it was happening – The men above me? That’s why they were so cautious. So secretive."  
"When… how?" she looked at him in disbelief.  
"You two should get out of here," the researcher said, regret clouding his face. "They will send more units."  
"Come with us, James," Sarah urged. "I can–"  
"You can’t help us, Sarah," O’Brian said with a wry smile. "They’re coming. I’m sorry. There’s nothing you can do to stop them. There’s nothing anyone can do."

"Let's go, Sarah," Deacon said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You know he’s right."  
"We can’t leave him behind, he’ll die!", she screamed.  
"I won’t, I promise," the researcher said and put his helmet back on. "But you will if you stay a minute longer."  
  
Alex watched Deacon leading Sarah towards his bike while she kept looking over her shoulder at the guy in the white hazmat suit, who made his way back to the quad.  
The nagging feeling that she’d missed something important didn’t want to subside as she retreated, but her deed was done. She felt a sharp sting of jealousy when she saw how Sarah wrapped her arms around Deacons chest with the naturalness of something she’d done a million times and he shot her a warm look over his shoulder before she rested her cheek next to his.  
The female Drifter turned around and walked towards her bike hidden in the bushes when she heard Deacon fire up the engine. She took a shaky breath as the droning of the motor subsided into the night.


	22. See you in another life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon finally finds the time to collect his thoughts

Deacon leaned against a worktop in the blueish light and looked at his wife lying on the bunk of the abandoned NERO MMU, making sure that she was fast asleep.   
He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes, every bone in his body aching for sleep, but someone had to be on the lookout. The Drifter still couldn’t believe that they’d made it out alive – barely and by the skin of their teeth – but in one piece after all.  
He stared at the darkened bruise on Sarah’s jaw and felt relieved that she was with him, where she was safe. For the first time in months, maybe years, the crushing weight of being without her was lifted. Deacon knew he should be grateful for his chance at normalcy, but the feelings he harbored for Alex, the unspoken words left between them burned inside his chest and made it impossible to breathe easy, let alone think clearly.  
He needed to get her out of his system, once and for all, he needed to find closure.  
The Drifter reluctantly stepped outside and walked behind the container, fishing a piece of paper out of his pocket. Deacon flicked his lighter and the small flame illuminated the hastily written note he’d found the other day after Alex had disappeared into the night.

  
_"Deek,"_ he read, the sudden feeling of loss tightening his chest. _"sorry I went away like that, but there were no more words left to be said between us.  
I wish it was different, I really do, but I know you well enough to see that you’ll never give up on Sarah, and I love you for that.  
I love you for believing that people are inherently good, that some of them are still worth saving.  
I love you for your unshakeable hope and the trust you put in your closest friends.  
I love you for the fact that you still dare to dream of a better future and that you’re willing to fight for it.  
I love you for saving me all those years back on the broken road and the countless times on this wild ride.  
Deacon, I’m sure you’ll find Sarah in time, and when you do, promise me to bring her home.  
Live your life and please, please! grow old together, will ya?  
  
Tell Boozer I’m sorry and that I said hi.  
Guess I’ll see you in another life, St. John.  
  
Take care, __Alex"_

He took a few shaky breaths and rubbed away the tears that clouded his field of vision.  
"Fuck," he sighed, staring at the narrow handwriting. He knew that she’d left the second he saw that folded piece of paper stuck underneath the yellow toy, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to read it until now.  
"Shit, Alex," he mumbled, taking one last look at the letter before folding it close. He took his lighter and held it to the corner of the paper until it caught fire. He stared at the growing flames closing in on his fingers, then dropped the crumbling sheet to the ground.  
With time, his feelings for Alex would surely fade away, just like the piece of paper that burned to ashes at his feet.  
"See you in another life," he said with a husk and tired voice before making his way back into the MMU, back to Sarah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you made it this far, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for sticking with me on this 22-chapter-long wild ride.  
> I hope these 30.000 and odd words were as much fun to read as they were to write.  
> I'd love to read some of your thoughts on it, feedback is always appreciated.
> 
> Still can't believe I finished it.


End file.
